ca  New  Era  in 


Old  MEXieo 


pi 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


8M 


POR  Fl  RIO     DIAZ. 


A  NEW  ERA  IN 
OLD  MEXICO 

By      G.     B.      WINTON 


(Viva  la  independencia! 

— Hidalgo. 

El  respcto  al  derecho  ageno  es  la  paz. 

— Juarez. 

Es  precise  tener  fe  en  la  justicia. 

— Diaz. 


Nashville,  Tenn.;  Dallas,  Tex. 

Publishing  House  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South 

Smith  &  Lamar,  Agents 

1905 


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Book  Agents  M.  E.  Church,  South 


F 

vr  n  Av 


>-& 


A  Mi  Esposa. 


'.i7tim2 


PREFACE. 

This  is  not  a  history,  but  a  clew  to  the  meaning  of 
history.  The  history  of  Mexico  in  English  remains 
to  be  written.  It  ought  to  be  written.  But  to  write  it 
is  not  so  simple  a  matter  as  to  turn  off  a  volume  like 
this.  Wishing  to  give  some  account  of  Mexico  as  it 
is,  after  a  residence  there  of  a  good  many  years,  the 
author  has  found  himself  under  the  necessity  of  ex- 
plaining the  things  that  are  by  the  things  that  have 
been.  He  trusts  that  this  book  may  be  a  guide  to  in- 
telligent observation  and  to  further  studies  upon  the 
part  of  others.  That  it  may  contribute  to  a  better 
understanding  between  near  neighbors  is  the  hope 
that  more  than  any  other  has  set  him  the  task  of  its 
preparation.  He  is  aware  that  it  is  repetitious,  and 
fears  that  it  may  be  tedious  ;  yet  he  believes  that  inter- 
est in  Mexico  and  its  affairs  is  in  our  day  so  deep  and 
so  sincere  among  those  who  read  the  English  language 
as  to  make  welcome  even  a  faulty  and  hasty  volume 
concerning  that  country  and  its  people. 

(V) 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
Geographical i 

CHAPTER  II. 
Products 9 

CHAPTER  III. 
Population i6 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Early  History aS 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Spanish  Conquest 38 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Spain  in  Mexico 51 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Revolution  Begun 59 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Revolution  Consummated 75 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Evolution  of  the  Republic 86 

CHAPTER  X. 

Catholicism  and  Revolutions — Imperium  in  Imperio..     94. 

(vii) 


viii  Contents. 

CHAPTER   XI.  „.  „ 

PAGE 

The  Reform  Laws  and  the  Constitution  of  1857 103 

CHAPTER  XII. 
The  French  Intervention,   (r.) 113 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  French  Intervention,    (ii.) 124 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
What  the  Republic  Faced 133 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Legacies  of  the  Spanish  Regime 141 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
The  Republic  Triumphant 151 

CHAPTER  XVn. 
Porfirio  Diaz  and  the  Arts  of  Peace 160 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Thirty  Years  of  Progress 171 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
The  Situation  To-day 179 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Modern  Religious  Movements 189 

Statistics  of  Protestant  Missions 198 

Bibliographical  Note 199 

Index 201 


A  NEW  ERA  IN  OLD  MEXICO. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Geographical, 

Few  sections  of  the  earth's  surface  containing  the 
same  number  of  square  miles  as  Mexico  have  so 
great  a  variety  of  geographical  conditions.  On  the 
whole,  the  country  may  be  described  as  high,  dry, 
and  cool.  This  last  adjective  is  sure  to  be  a  sur- 
prise to  those  who  have  not  made  conditions  there 
a  study.  Yet  it  is  a  fact  that,  even  in  summer,  the 
climate  of  a  large  part  of  Mexico  is  often  uncom- 
fortably cool.  The  country  is  a  great  triangle,  slight- 
ly curved  like  a  cornucopia  and  spreading  toward  the 
north.  Down  either  side,  near  the  Gulf  on  the  east 
and  the  Pacific  Ocean  on  the  west,  runs  a  high  wall 
of  mountains.  The  western  range — Sierra  Madre 
del  Occidente,  as  it  is  called  in  Spanish — is  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  Sierra  Nevada  Mountains  of  Cali- 
fornia. The  eastern  range  corresponds  in  a  general 
way  with  the  Rocky  Mountains,  though  lying  further 
to  the  east  and  not  forming  with  them,  by  any  means, 
an  unl)roken  chain.  These  mountain  ranges  are  a 
fence  to  the  interior  of  the  country,  shutting  off  from 
it  much  moisture  and  the  greater  part  of  the  bois- 


2  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

terous  weather  of  the  coasts.  They  divide  the  whole 
topography  of  Mexico  into  three  sections,  with  fairly 
well  marked  distinctions  of  climate.  The  lands  ly- 
ing in  these  three  altitudes, — for  it  is  mostly  a  ques- 
tion of  altitude, — are  commonly  spoken  of  as  hot, 
temperate,  and  cool. 

The  hot  lands,  tierras  calientcs,  are  the  lowlands. 
With  the  exception  of  a  few  valleys  of  the  interior, — 
gorges  rather, — which  drop  downward  to  levels  so 
low  that  the  tropical  sun  creates  within  them  a  trop- 
ical climate,  these  lands  lie  exclusively  along  the 
coast.  They  form  a  narrow  band,  widening  a  little 
at  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  republic  into  the 
lower  valley  of  the  Rio  Grande,  but,  for  the  most 
part,  less  than  a  hundred  miles  in  breadth,  which  ex- 
tends around  the  edge  of  the  whole  republic,  except- 
ing, of  course,  the  northern  boundary.  This  band  is 
a  strictly  tropical  region,  more  than  half  of  it  lying 
south  of  the  Tropic  of  Cancer.  It  is  a  flat  and  badly 
drained  country,  subject,  for  the  most  part,  to  heavy 
rains  in  their  season,  and  then  to  long  periods  of 
drought  and  heat.  The  vagaries  of  the  trade  winds 
leave  much  of  it  poorly  watered,  and  its  natural  con- 
dition is  that  of  a  somewhat  arid  jungle  alternating 
with  marsh  and  sluggish  streams.  It  is  the  habitat  of 
countless  varieties  of  pestiferous  insects,  of  gaudy 
tropical  birds  without  number,  of  wild  game  and 
wild  cattle  which  hide  in  its  jungles,  and  of  compar- 
atively few  people. 

As  will  be  readily  inferred  from  the  conditions 


The  Three  Zones.  3 

indicated,  it  is  by  no  means  a  healthful  section.  Yel- 
low fever  is  rarely  absent,  and  mosquitoes  and  mala- 
ria abound.  Only  a  few  centers  of  population  of  any 
consequence  have  ever  been  established  in  these 
coastal  belts,  and  they  only  because  of  the  necessary 
business  connected  with  the  seaports.  At  present 
Vera  Cruz,  Tampico,  Acapulco,  and  the  termini  of 
the  Tehuantepec  Railway,  are  the  most  important  of 
these  cities.  Guaymas,  Mazatlan,  and  Tepic  are  also 
places  of  some  importance.  Monterey,  on  the  north- 
ern foothills  of  the  great  range  of  the  east,  just  where 
it  begins  to  bend  to  the  south,  is  only  seventeen  hun- 
dred feet  above  sea  level,  and  in  some  respects  should 
be  mentioned  as  one  of  the  hot  country  cities.  It  is 
far  from  the  seacoast,  however,  and  so  near  to  the 
higher  ranges  of  mountains  that  its  climate  is  quite 
distinct  from  that  of  the  coast  towns. 

Next  above  the  hot  country  is  what  is  spoken  of 
as  the  temperate  zone.  It  is  not,  for  the  most  part, 
temperate  so  nearly  as  subtropical.  It  begins  at  an 
altitude  of  some  three  thousand  feet,  where  the  mois- 
ture flowing  from  the  Gulf  and  from  the  Pacific 
strikes  against  the  swelling  sides  of  the  lofty  moun- 
tain ranges  and  pours  down  a  life-giving  flood  of 
rains.  Frost  rarely  comes  to  this  section,  which,  ex- 
tending upward  to  five  or  six  thousand  feet  of  eleva- 
tion according  to  the  latitude,  forms  a  zone  of  living 
green  which  belts  the  triangle  of  the  republic  from 
the  northeast  around  by  the  south  and  up  the  west 
side.     vSimilar  conditions,  with  slight  variations  as 


4  A  Nevv^  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

regards  rainfall,  obtain  on  the  interior  of  these  high 
mountain  ranges,  especially  toward  the  north,  where 
the  interior  plateaus  are  usually  less  than  five  thou- 
sand feet  in  altitude.  These  temperate  lands,  so 
called,  are  the  home  of  the  orange  and,  in  the  South, 
of  the  coffee  berry.  Their  abundant  vegetation  and 
countless  and  gorgeous  flowers,  as  well  as  the  splen- 
did scenery  due  to  the  fact  that  for  the  most  part  this 
zone  lies  on  the  mountain  sides,  make  these  lands 
ideally  beautiful.  The  very  fact,  however,  that  it  is 
mostly  but  a  belt  on  the  slope  of  the  mountains  re- 
duces the  territory  within  this  zone  which  is  arable  to 
such  a  degree  that  the  population  which  it  supports 
is  necessarily  limited.  Where  the  topography  and 
latitude  allow,  bananas  and  oranges,  as  well  as  many 
other  fruits,  coffee,  and  certain  grains  of  the  temper- 
ate zone,  may  be  cultivated  to  great  advantage. 

Beginning  in  the  same  altitudes  with  the  tierra 
templada,  and  extending  upward  to  the  valley  re- 
gions from  eight  to  ten  thousand  feet  above  sea  level, 
is  the  tierra  fria,  or  cold  country.  The  word  applied 
with  exactness  would  signify  only  those  very  high 
plateaus  and  mountain  sides  where  frost  must  be  con- . 
tended  with  and  vegetation  is  at  a  grave  disadvan- 
tage. In  practice,  however,  most  of  the  lands  of  the 
great  interior  plateau,  which  has  an  average  altitude 
of  about  six  thousand  feet,  are  spoken  of  as  the 
tierra  fria.  Some  geographers,  on  the  other  hand, 
insist  that  this  region  is,  properly  speaking,  the  tem- 
perate zone — certainly  a  more  exact  description  of  it 


The  Great  Interior  Plateau.  5 

in  English.  Its  products  are  precisely  those  of  that 
section  of  the  earth's  surface  usually  spoken  of  as 
the  temperate  zone.  It  is  true  that  they  are  modihed 
in  a  large  measure  by  the  circumstance  that  this  re- 
gion in  Mexico  is  an  interior  and  arid  plateau.  The 
development  of  vegetable  life  is  not  simply  a  ques- 
tion of  the  proportion  between  heat  and  cold.  Other 
influences  must  be  taken  into  the  account,  notably 
the  question  of  rainfall  and  of  the  relative  tempera- 
ture of  night  and  day. 

This  great  plateau  of  Mexico  conforms  in  general 
outline  to  the  triangular  shape  of  the  country  itself. 
It  has  been,  from  the  beginning  of  its  history,  the 
home  of  the  bulk  of  Mexico's  people.  Cut  ofif  by  the 
high  fence  of  mountains  on  either  side  from  the 
moisture  of  the  seacoast  region,  it  is  a  land  of  abun- 
dant sunshine  and  equable  climate.  The  rainfall 
over  most  of  its  area  is  not  sufficient  for  anything 
like  heavy  vegetation.  The  water  supply  is  further 
limited  by  the  circumstance  that  this  rainfall  is  con- 
fined to  three  or  four  summer  months  known  as  the 
rainy  season.  Since  the  stratification  of  the  rocks 
underlying  most  of  Mexico's  interior  has  been  great- 
ly broken  and  tilted  from  the  horizontal  l)y  heavy 
volcanic  action,  there  are  on  this  high  table-land 
comparatively  few  perennial  springs  and  almost  no 
permanent  running  streams.  Over  the  greater  part 
of  its  surface  crops  of  Indian  corn  and  beans,  of 
wheat,  barley,  and  other  grains,  may  be  raised  with 
more  or  less  certainty  without  irrigation.    Wherever 


6  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

running  streams  or  carefully  hoarded  rainfall  can  be 
taken  advantage  of  for  the  purpose  of  irrigation, 
crops  are  absolutely  assured.  The  unfailing  sun- 
shine and  the  remarkable  fertility  of  the  rather  sandy 
and  rocky  soil,  which  does  not  appear  to  be  fertile, 
give  abundant  reward  when  the  labor  of  the  hus- 
bandman is  supplemented  by  the  water  supply  which 
is  the  one  absolutely  essential  requisite.  So  essen- 
tial, indeed,  is  it  that,  in  certain  sections  of  Mexico, 
it  is  the  custom  in  transferring  agricultural  lands  to 
sell  the  water  right  and  let  the  land  go  with  it. 

In  a  general  way  it  may  be  said  of  Mexico's  high- 
lands that  the  rainfall,  and  with  it  the  possibility  of 
human  habitation,  increases  toward  the  south.  At 
its  northern  extremity  the  plateau  is  wide  and  dry. 
Somewhat  lower  than  at  the  south,  its  climate  is 
warmer,  and  the  wide  plains  are  so  scorched  by  the 
ardent  sun  that  they  are  valuable  chiefly  as  pasture 
lands.  Toward  the  southern  extremity  the  whole 
land  grows  narrower,  and  the  moist  winds  from 
either  side  more  frequently  sweep  over  the  mountain 
tops  to  water  the  plains  within.  The  mountains  also 
there  are  mostly  covered  with  heavy  vegetation,  and 
from  them  flow  streams  which  are  usually  soon  dis- 
sipated in  irrigating  the  wide  plains.  Into  this  nar- 
rower and  more  mountainous  section  toward  the 
southern  apex  of  the  table-land  are  gathered  most 
of  the  cities  of  the  republic.  Many  of  them  have 
grown  up  around  rich  deposits  of  mineral,  though 
their  permanent  prosperity  would  have  been  impos- 


The  Mountain  Peaks.  7 

sible  without  the  food  supply  which  comes  from  the 
neigboring  plains. 

As  would  be  naturally  inferred,  these  interior 
plains,  high,  dry,  and  cool,  are,  in  so  far  as  concerns 
the  conditions  of  climate  and  health,  an  almost  ideal 
place  for  the  habitation  of  man.  The  climate  is 
equable,  the  temperature  rarely  falling  to  the  freez- 
ing point,  and  never  reaching  sultriness  from  heat. 
Indeed,  the  air  is  so  dry  and  crisp  that  on  the  warm- 
est days  one  has  but  to  enter  a  house  or  the  shade  of 
a  tree  to  be  instantly  comfortable. 

Above  the  general  outline  of  the  two  mountain 
ranges,  which  are  rarely  above  twelve  thousand  feet 
in  height,  shoot  upward  three  or  four  great  volcanic 
peaks.  Two  of  these,  the  best  known  perhaps,  stand 
sentinel  over  the  valley  in  which  the  City  of  Mex- 
ico lies.  Between  Popocatepetl  and  Ixtaccihuatl 
marched  the  Spaniards  under  Cortez,  and  from  the 
high  pass  which  unites  these  snow-covered  peaks 
they  looked  downward  to  the  west  upon  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  valleys  in  the  world.  The  panorama 
is  a  splendid  one  still,  though  the  advance  of  civiliza- 
tion has  filled  the  limpid  air  about  the  City  of  Mex- 
ico with  dust  and  smoke.  On  either  side  of  the  coun- 
try stands  a  mountain  looking  out  to  sea.  One  peak, 
Colima,  constantly  sends  forth  a  banner  of  smoke 
which  may  be  seen  far  out  on  the  Pacific.  From 
time  to  time  it  becomes  an  active  volcano  pouring  out 
ashes  and  flame.  On  the  east,  Orizaba,  eighteen 
tliousand  feet  high,  in  shape  an  almost  perfect  cone, 


8  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

clothed  with  four  thousand  feet  of  perpetual  snow, 
stands  bathing  its  feet  in  the  tropic  sea  by  Vera 
Cruz.  It  is  like  Fujiyama  in  Japan  in  the  circum- 
stance of  running  the  whole  gamut  of  vegetation 
from  the  sea  level  to  the  snow  line.  It  also  resem- 
bles Japan's  famous  peak  in  the  perfection  of  its  sym- 
metry. It  excels  it  in  range,  however,  as  it  stands  so 
far  south  that  the  vegetation  at  its  base  is  strictly 
tropical.  It  also  overtops  it  several  thousand  feet 
in  height.  Besides  these  more  noted  peaks  is  the  vol- 
cano of  Toluca,  as  it  is  called,  whose  ragged  and 
narrow  crater,  seamed  with  lava  set  off  by  a  tracery 
of  snow,  looks  down  upon  the  thriving  little  capital 
of  the  state  of  Mexico.  These  snow-capped  moun- 
tains add  a  finishing  touch  to  the  romantic  and  at- 
tractive scenery  of  Mexico — a  country  which  sup- 
plies a  greater  variety  of  natural  growths  and  of 
scenic  effects  than  any  other  on  the  North  American 
continent,  or  perhaps  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  II. 
Products. 

From  the  beginning  of  its  history  Mexico  has 
been  known  as  rich  in  minerals.  It  was  the  rumored 
abundance  of  gold  and  other  precious  metals  which 
lured  on  the  Spaniards  there  as  well  as  in  the  other 
countries  which  became  the  scenes  of  their  adven- 
turous invasions.  Yet  both  previous  to  the  conquest 
and  at  the  present  time  the  chief  resources  of  Mex- 
ico have  been  agricultural.  By  virtue  of  its  surpris- 
ing variety  of  climate,  nearly  all  the  products  of  both 
the  tropic  and  the  temperate  zone  find  their  home  in 
some  part  of  the  republic.  The  chief  reliance  of  its 
people  for  food  has  ever  been  Indian  corn.  The  dis- 
covery of  this  cereal  by  the  Europeans  who  came  to 
America  has  added  vastly  to  the  well-being  of  the 
world.  Mexico  is  also  the  native  habitat  of  the  to- 
mato, the  potato,  and  the  tobacco  plant. 

The  primitive  method  of  availing  themselves  of 
Indian  corn  is  still  in  vogue  among  the  people  ot 
that  country.  The  grain  is  soaked  in  weak  lye  or  a 
solution  of  lime  till  the  outer  coat  is  softened  and  par- 
tially dissolved.  It  is  then  washed,  and,  while  still 
moist,  crushed  between  two  stones.  The  nether  mill- 
stone of  this  primitive  mill  is  a  fiat  slab,  set  in  a 
sloping  position,  over  which  the  upper  millstone,  in- 
stead of  being  turned,  is  rubbed  back  and  forth.    The 

(9) 


10  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

product  of  the  grinding  is  not  meal,  but  dough,  which 
is  then  patted  thin  and  baked  over  an  open  fire  with- 
out sah  or  other  condiment.  This  is  the  food  of  the 
bulk  of  Mexico's  population.  Next  in  order  of  eco- 
nomic value  for  the  feeding  of  the  people  comes  the 
bean  (frijol).  The  brown  bean,  of  several  species, 
which  is  cultivated  throughout  the  whole  country, 
both  lowlands  and  highlands,  is  boiled  and  eaten  to 
the  accompaniment  of  the  thin  corn  cakes.  If  the 
family  is  well  to  do,  these  boiled  beans  are  also  fried 
in  lard  before  being  served.  It  is  an  extremely  poor 
man  whose  dinner  consists  of  only  one  of  these  two 
elements.  Yet  one  or  both  of  them  is  sure  to  appear 
on  the  table  of  even  the  wealthiest  and  most  cultured 
of  Mexican  families. 

In  some  of  the  highlands,  where  the  conditions  of 
soil  are  favorable,  wheat  is  sown.  More  generally 
still,  on  account  of  its  hardiness  in  resisting  cold,  is 
planted  barley.  The  green  splotches  that  the  chance 
traveler  will  see  far  up  the  sides  of  the  high  moun- 
tains toward  the  timber  line  are  usually  of  barley. 
It  can  be  coaxed  to  an  altitude  several  hundred  feet 
hieher  than  the  hardiest  varieties  of  Indian  corn. 
In  the  tropical  and  subtropical  regions  of  Mexico 
sugar  cane  is  extensively  grown.  Also,  where  con- 
ditions favor — that  is  to  say,  where  a  sufficiency  of 
water  can  be  obtained — in  the  tropical  sections  rice 
culture  is  beginning  to  be  common.  The  cultivation 
of  cotton,  which  always  commands  a  high  price  in 
Mexico  on  account  of  its  universal  use  among  the 


The  "Century  Plant."  ii 

laboring  people  for  clothing,  has  been  greatly  ham- 
pered in  recent  years  by  the  ravages  of  the  boll  wee- 
vil. 

Besides  these  products  common  to  other  lands, 
there  are  one  or  two  almost  peculiar  to  Mexico, 
which  are  of  notable  economic  value.  The  principal 
of  these,  as  regards  at  least  the  value  of  its  product, 
is  the  maguey,  or  agave.  This  plant,  resembling  the 
aloe,  produces  an  enormous  quantity  of  starchy 
growth  from  which  may  be  extracted  alcoholic  liq- 
uors. In  the  regions  adjacent  to  Mexico  City  it  is 
the  juice  of  the  plant,  slightly  fermented  and  called 
pulque,  which  is  consumed.  In  other  sections  the 
alcohol  which  the  plant  contains  is  extracted  by  dis- 
tillation, and  goes  under  the  name  of  mezcal,  or  te- 
quila. These  latter  liquids  are  heavily  charged  with 
alcohol  and  very  deleterious  in  their  effects  if  drunk 
freely.  This  same  plant,  with  one  or  two  other  re- 
lated species,  furnishes  a  very  fine  fiber  which  is  com- 
ing to  be  a  commercial  product  of  no  little  value. 
This  fiber,  spoken  of  under  the  general  name  ixflc, 
was  produced  during  1902  to  the  value  of  $1,706,- 
892.  Closely  related  with  the  plants  producing  it  is 
the  henequen,  of  which  the  product  in  Mexico  the 
same  year,  1902,  amounted  in  value  to  $16,937,809. 
There  are  other  fibrous  plants  in  Mexico  which  will 
be  utilized  in  future,  when  their  merits  are  prop- 
erly known.  One  of  their  products  of  special  merit 
is  a  fine  grade  of  paper.  So  far  the  development 
and  utilization  of  these  fibers  have  languished  some- 


12  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

what  for  lack  of  satisfactory  machinery  for  the  ex- 
traction of  the  fiber  from  the  succulent  leaves. 

Within  recent  years  much  attention  has  been 
drawn  to  the  cultivation  of  coffee  in  Mexico.  Cof- 
fee, rubber,  and  oranges  have  been  the  occasion  of 
many  investments  on  the  part  of  foreigners ;  it  may 
be  added,  also  the  occasion  of  many  disappoint- 
ments. All  these,  including  also  bananas,  are  so 
exacting  in  their  requirements  of  climate,  soil,  and 
cultivation  that  the  sum  total  of  the  conditions  nec- 
essary for  their  exploitation  is  hard  to  obtain.  And, 
often,  when  it  is  obtained,  there  is  a  vital  defect  in 
the  situation  caused  by  lack  of  transportation  facili- 
ties. The  coffee  plant  is  extremely  sensitive  to  cold. 
It  must  be  also  protected  from  the  tropical  sun.  It 
must  have  a  liberal  supply  of  water.  The  berry, 
when  mature,  requires  most  careful  handling;  and, 
after  all,  it  may  be  found  that  the  soil,  in  a  section 
where  all  these  conditions  are  satisfactorily  met,  is 
such  that  the  product  is  deficient  in  flavor.  Like 
tobacco,  there  is  an  elusive  somewhat  in  coffee,  im- 
parted by  a  certain  savor  and  delicacy  of  soil,  which 
can  only  be  discovered  by  experiment,  and  can, 
by  no  means,  be  duplicated  where  conditions  are 
unfavorable.  There  are  a  few  sections  in  Mexico 
which  produce  coffee  of  a  very  high  grade.  Un- 
fortunately, those  yielding  the  best  quality  are  ex- 
tremely limited  and  so  situated  that  extensive  culti- 
vation is  impossible. 

The  raising  of  citrous   fruits  and  bananas   will 


The  Labor  Supply.  13 

probably  be  greatly  developed  in  the  future.  Or- 
anges and  lemons  will  stand  the  somewhat  rougher 
climate  of  the  high  plateau,  and  there  are  extensive 
regions  of  the  flat  tropical  jungle  that  might  be 
profitably  cultivated  in  bananas.  The  lack  of  trans- 
portation facihties  has  hitherto  limited  the  produc- 
tion of  all  these  various  fruits,  and  the  clog  of  im- 
port and  export  duties  has  not  encouraged  the  ship- 
ping of  Mexico's  products  to  other  countries.  The 
cultivation  of  the  rubber  plant, — or  plants,  for  there 
are  several, — is  still  in  its  experimental  stage  and 
confined  to  the  southern  exfremit}^  of  the  republic. 
The  difficulties  to  be  solved  have  to  do  chiefly  with 
the  labor  supply  and  the  matter  of  transportation. 
The  climate  where  these  plants  will  grow  is  un- 
healthful  and  enervating  for  the  white  races.  The 
Mexicans  native  to  that  section  are  averse  to  phys- 
ical exertion,  and  up  to  the  present  no  satisfactory 
plan  for  supplying  the  necessary  manual  labor  has 
been  devised.  The  transportation  facilities  are  for 
the  most  part  equally  inadequate. 

At  the  end  of  this  chapter  is  appended  a  table  of 
the  agricultural  statistics  of  Mexico  for  1902.  This 
has  been  found  to  be  scarcely  a  typical  year,  since 
most  of  the  products  were  greater  in  other  seasons, 
notably  in  1898,  which  was  a  year  of  good  rainfall. 
However,  these  statistics  are  given,  since  they  are 
the  latest  available. 

The  mineral  wealth  of  Mexico  has  been  notorious 
through  all  its  history.     Tn  silver,  especially,  it  has 


14  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

excelled,  having  produced  a  quantity  of  this  metal 
during  the  time  of  the  Spanish  occupation  which  is 
simply  prodigious.  Some  mines  seem  inexhaustible 
still.  From  time  to  time  new  ones  are  discovered. 
Within  recent  years  old  and  abandoned  workings 
have  been  reopened  by  virtue  of  modern  and  eco- 
nomical processes  of  reduction.  In  gold  it  is  not 
quite  so  rich,  though  the  annual  output  is  of  consid- 
erable value.  Copper  and  quicksilver  form  impor- 
tant elements  in  the  total  mineral  product  of  the  coun- 
try. It  has  iron  mines  in  only  a  few  places.  But 
one  of  its  deposits  of  this  metal,  the  iron  mountain 
at  the  side  of  the  city  of  Durango,  is  one  of  the 
most  famous  in  the  world.  It  is  a  longitudinal  hill, 
about  a  mile  long  and  four  or  five  hundred  feet  high, 
composed  of  almost  absolutely  pure  magnetic  iron 
ore;  the  largest  single  lump,  it  is  believed,  in  the 
world. 

The  monetary  circulation  of  Mexico  is  on  the  sil- 
ver basis.  This  makes  a  large  demand  for  the  white 
metal  at  home.  Mexico's  silver  coins  also  circu- 
late extensively  in  China,  Japan,  and  other  parts  of 
the  Orient.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  the  ratio  of  val- 
ue between  silver  and  gold  has  steadily  declined 
within  recent  years,  a  matter  that  has  seriously 
cramped  the  financiers  of  the  Mexican  republic.  The 
development  of  that  country  has  nevertheless  gone 
forward  with  unusual  rapidity  during  the  last  two 
decades,  due  principally  to  the  fact  that  in  the  early 
eighties   several   lines  of  railway  were  completed, 


Some  Statistics. 


15 


traversing  most  of  its  territory,  and  greatly  fa- 
cilitating the  shipment  and  sale  of  its  products. 
These  railways  have  also  contributed  to  the  settle- 
ment of  political  and  military  disturbances,  and 
have  thus  become  one  of  the  most  important 
agencies  in  promoting  the  present  era  of  peace.  Sta- 
tistics of  the  mining  products  are  appended  along 
with  those  of  agriculture. 

Products  in  1902. 

(Value  in  Silver.) 


Rice $  2,540,233 

Barley 4,916,523 

Corn .  78,41 1,844 

Wheat  (8,428,400 bu.)  24,522,429 

Beans 13,328,903 

Chickpeas i>797>587 

Sweet  potatoes 421,670 

Potatoes 580,844 

Dried  red  peppers. .     3,244,239 

Sugar 17, 103,760 

Sirup 7,141,529 

Juice 2,735,940 


Peanuts $     355,739 

Cane  brandy 7,028,616 

Corn  brandy 954, 197 

Mezcal 2,530,812 

Tequila 1,183,686 

Pulque 6,267,680 

Ilenequen  (120,114,- 

500  pounds) 16,937,809 

Cotton  (49,564,659 

pounds) 8,629,109 

Ixtle 1,706,892 


1901. 

(Statistics  for  1902  defective.) 


Coffee $  8,733,778 

Chocolate 1,622,844 

Tobacco 3,009,874 

Vanilla 1,372,462 

Rubber 344,145 

Oranges 723,597 


Bananas $     445,79^ 

Tomatoes 113,607 

Gold 14,595,931 

Silver 65,554,875 

Copper 24,631,289 

Lead 5,602,075 


CHAPTER  III. 
Population. 

Since  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
population  of  Mexico  has  been  made  up  principally 
of  three  elements.  Occupying  the  superior  place 
among  these,  in  wealth,  education,  and  power,  have 
been  the  Spaniards  and  their  pure-blooded  descend- 
ants. For  a  time  these  were  not  counted  one  class, 
but  were  divided  into  Spaniards  and  Creoles — that 
is,  those  who  had  actually  been  born  in  Spain,  and 
their  descendants  born  in  "New  Spain,''  as  it  was 
then  called.  Very  early  in  the  history  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  Spaniards  with  Mexico  began  the  habit 
of  intermarriage  with  the  native  population.  The 
children  of  mixed  blood,  called  Mestizos,  have  mul- 
tiplied with  the  passing  of  the  years  until,  at  present, 
they  form  a  second  large  element  in  the  population. 
The  third,  a  sort  of  substratum,  as  it  were,  is  found 
in  the  native  races.  The  Indian  tribes  of  Mexico 
were  quite  numerous  at  the  time  of  the  conquest ; 
one  usually  reputable  authority  placing  the  popula- 
tion at  sixteen  millions,  doubtless  a  very  consider- 
able exaggeration. 

Taking  up  these  several  classes  in  their  inverse 

order,  the  first  thing  to  be  said  of  the  Indians  is 

that  their  origin  is  shrouded  in  mystery.     Physical 

and  linguistic  peculiarities  point  to  a  kinship  with 

(i6) 


Are  the  Mexicans  Japanese?  17 

the  Pueblo  Indians  of  Arizona  and  California. 
There  are  certain  racial  indications  which  hint 
vaguely  of  connection  with  the  Japanese.  It  would 
not  be  a  difficult  supposition  to  explain  the  pres- 
ence of  these  peoples  on  the  western  coast  of  Amer- 
ica by  the  coming  of  some  prehistoric  clan  across 
the  ocean  on  the  warm  Japanese  current.  The  tra- 
ditions of  the  Mexicans  point,  without  exception, 
to  the  north  as  the  direction  from  which  their  fathers 
migrated  to  the  Mexican  plateau.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  those  early  peoples,  who  marked 
the  valleys  of  Arizona  with  their  irrigation  canals 
and  left  their  dwelling  places  to  puzzle  the  archae- 
ologists of  our  day  among  the  barren  cliffs  of  the 
New  Mexico  mountains,  were  connected  with  the 
tribes  which,  later  migrating  toward  the  south,  built 
up  the  civilization  of  the  valley  of  Mexico. 

Just  which  were  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  Mexico 
cannot  be  clearly  made  out.  Ethnologists  of  that 
country  who  have  made  the  subject  a  matter  of 
study  hold  that  at  least  three  separate  migrations 
swept  over  the  greater  part  of  the  southern  end  of 
the  plateau.  Some  believe  that  the  first  of  these 
came  from  the  south,  its  tribes  identical  with  tlic 
highly  civilized  peoples  found  by  the  Spaniards  in 
Peru.  It  seems  more  likely,  however,  that  the  In- 
dian traditions  are  correct,  and  that,  one  after  anoth- 
er, the  early  tribes  came  down  the  Pacific  coast, 
across  the  Sierra  Madre  del  Occidente,  and  thus  into 
2 


i8  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

the  highlands  of  the  interior,  where  each  left  traces 
of  its  occupancy. 

Among  the  earliest  of  these  were  the  Mayas. 
This  tribe  has  left  most  of  its  more  notable  monu- 
ments on  the  peninsula  of  Yucatan,  into  which  low 
and  sultry  region  it  was  forced  by  a  more  warlike 
and  less  civilized  tribe,  which  later  took  its  place 
and  defaced  its  records  on  the  central  plateau.  In 
Yucatan  there  are  to  this  day  extensive  remains  in 
architecture  and  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  which  tes- 
tify to  an  advanced  stage  of  civilization  on  the  part 
of  the  Mayas.  The  language  has  been  preserved  in 
a  somewhat  fragmentary  form,  but  all  attempts  to 
decipher  the  picture-writing  hidden  away  in  the  jun- 
gles of  Yucatan  and  Central  America  have  been  un- 
successful. After  the  Mayas  came  the  Nahoas,  the 
most  prominent  tribe  of  which  division  were  the 
Toltecs.  It  is  true  that  some  writers  believe  that  the 
Mayas  themselves  were  of  the  general  division  called 
Nahoa,  though  there  is  so  much  confusion  as  to 
their  language  and  history  that  nothing  definite  has 
been  determined. 

The  Toltecs  and  other  better-known  tribes  of  the 
Nahoa  division  unhesitatingly  trace  their  origin  to 
the  west,  their  early  traditions  plainly  teaching  that 
their  tribe  reached  the  interior  plateau  from  the  di- 
rection of  the  Pacific.  Their  traditions,  to  which 
the  early  historians  give  the  weight  of  history, — and, 
indeed,  they  did  exist  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  in 
a  sort  of  picture-writing, — trace  the  whole  itinerary 


The  Nahoas  or  Toltecs.  xg 

of  the  migration  from  southern  California  to  the 
valley  of  Mexico.  There  they  rapidly  developed  the 
arts  of  civilization.  The  tribes  of  this  division  of  ab- 
origines appear  to  have  been  of  a  pacific  temper.  It 
seems  quite  within  the  range  of  probability  that  their 
migration  from  the  valley  of  the  Gila  River  was  due 
to  the  pressure  upon  them  there  of  savage  neigh- 
bors. The  elaborate  plans  for  protecting  their  homes 
and  the  products  of  their  labor  which  may  yet  be 
seen  in  the  cliff  dwellings  of  Arizona  point  in  the 
same  direction.  They  were  an  agricultural  people, 
not  inclined  to  the  barbarities  of  war.  In  Mexico, 
however,  thrown  into  contact  with  the  robust  and 
energetic  tribes  which  had  preceded  them,  notably 
the  Zapotecs  and  Mixtecs, — fragments  of  a  general 
racial  division  made  by  some  historians  under  the 
name  of  Mecas, — they  developed  a  vigorous  national 
life.  The  period  of  their  greatest  prosperity  was 
only  a  very  brief  time  preceding  the  arrival  of  the 
Spanish.  They  had  extensive  and  well-built  cities 
at  Tollan  (Tula) — from  which  place  was  derived  the 
name  Toltecs — Cholula,  and  Teotihuacan.  They  un- 
derstood the  raising  an'd  manufacture  of  cotton, 
wore  clothes,  hats,  and  sandals,  and  were  a  tall, 
sprightly  people,  devoted  still  to  agriculture  and  pa- 
cific pursuits  rather  than  to  war. 

From  some  uncertain  quarter,  apparently  the 
west,  came  a  migration,  immediately  succeeding  the 
Toltecs,  which  built  up  upon  the  fragments  of  their 
cities  a  vigorous  military  government.    When  these 


20  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

were  about  to  reach  the  summit  of  their  civilization 
and  strength,  the  third  or,  as  some  beheve,  the 
fourth  general  migration  reached  the  central  Mex- 
ican plateau  from  the  west.  These  were  a  group 
of  five  or  six  tribes,  called  by  some  historians  Na- 
huatlacas.  The  most  famous  of  these  tribes  later 
became  the  Aztecs,  who  derived  their  name  from 
having  migrated  from  Aztlan,  or  "land  of  herons." 
This  name  doubtless  referred  to  some  laguna  toward 
the  west  of  what  is  now  Mexico,  some  think  to  Lake 
Chapala  in  the  state  of  Jalisco. 

The  Aztecs  have  become  for  modern  times  the 
typical  Mexicans.  The  facts  of  the  case,  however, 
seem  to  be  that  they  and  their  sister  tribes  reached 
the  valley  of  Mexico,  then  inhabited  by  a  mixture 
of  Toltecs,  Otomis,  Chichimecs,  etc.,  after  having 
fought  their  way  through  numerous  settlements  fur- 
ther west,  with  nothing  in  the  way  of  civilization 
except  a  tolerably  perfect  tribal  organization,  tre- 
mendous racial  vitality,  and  a  warlike  temper,  which 
latter  proved  to  be  their  chief  asset  in  first  making 
a  place  for  themselves  among  the  civilized  tribes 
about  them,  and  later  making  a  fierce  stand  against 
the  Spanish  invaders.  Upon  their  arrival  in  the  val- 
ley of  Mexico  they  were  so  exhausted  from  constant 
traveling  and  fighting  that  they  were  forced  to  take 
refuge  upon  a  rocky  island  in  Lake  Texcoco.  There 
they  built  themselves  huts  of  reeds,  and  lived  on  the 
fish  and  game  in  which  the  lake  abounded.  The 
soothsayer  of  the  tribe  had  settled  upon  this  island, 


Coming  of  the  Aztecs.  21 

because  he  found  there  what  had  been  indicated  as 
the  final  resting  place  of  their  migration,  a  Mexican 
eagle  sitting  on  the  flat  leaf  of  a  nopal  cactus  (op-mi- 
tia)  devouring  a  snake.  This  symbol  has  become 
the  Mexican  coat  of  arms. 

The  Chichimecs,  a  warlike  people  themselves,  had 
rapidly  absorbed  enough  of  Toltec  civilization  to  de- 
velop a  vigorous  government.  It  was  somewhat 
of  the  nature  of  a  kingdom,  though  the  king, — or 
kings,  for  frequently  there  were  more  than  one, — was 
really  no  more  than  an  Indian  sachem.  But  as  the 
wealth  of  the  people  increased  and  their  tribal  cities 
became  more  extensive  and  substantial,  the  naked 
warriors  who  had  formerly  taken  the  field  with  bow 
and  spear  came  to  understand  the  military  strength 
which  inheres  in  the  substantially  built  city.  Thus 
their  larger  towns  soon  came  to  be  military  centers, 
and  the  tribute  which  they  exacted  from  the  neigh- 
boring tribes  increased  the  wealth  of  the  governing 
bodies  and  made  military  organization  and  a  stand- 
ing army  possible.  Their  principal  city,  important 
previous  to  the  conquest,  was  Texcoco. 

Meantime,  the  Aztec  tribe,  warriors  to  begin  with 
and  made  all  the  hardier  by  their  life  as  hunters  and 
fishermen  on  the  lake,  rapidly  multiplied  and  began 
to  make  inroads  upon  the  agricultural  regions  adja- 
cent. Their  reed  huts  gave  place  to  more  sub- 
stantial buildings  of  adobe,  and  later  even  of 
stone.  Whether  they  l^rought  with  them  the 
skill   in  the  builder's  art   which   made  such   prog- 


22  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

ress  possible,  or  whether,  as  seems  more  prob- 
able, artisans  came  to  them  from  the  neighboring 
cities,  especially  those  representing  the  then  down- 
trodden but  somewhat  highly  civilized  Toltecs,  it 
is  impossible  to  determine.  At  any  rate,  whether 
by  virtue  of  their  own  skill  in  the  arts  of  peace 
and  war  or  by  means  of  what  they  learned  from 
their  neighbors,  their  island  city  rapidly  grew  into 
a  vigorous  stronghold,  soon  rivaling,  in  both  wealth 
and  military  strength  the  neighboring  capital  of  the 
Chichimecs.  For  a  time  these  rival  governments 
engaged  in  fierce  conflicts.  Later,  peace  was  made 
by  the  intermarriage  of  what  had  now  become  the 
royal  families.  By  the  time  the  Spaniards  came, 
the  reigning  chief  of  the  Aztecs  was  the  practically 
undisputed  ruler  of  the  whole  valley  of  Mexico,  and 
of  numerous  tribes  in  the  neighboring  mountains, 
which  preferred  accepting  his  rule  to  risking  an  in- 
vasion by  his  w^arriors. 

This  brief  account  of  the  peopling  of  the  country 
will  be  followed  up  in  a  later  chapter.  It  seemed 
necessary  here,  in  order  to  give  the  reader  some 
conception  of  the  multiplied  racial  strains  which 
contributed  to  the  native  populations  of  Mexico.  Be- 
sides those  already  mentioned  there  were,  at  the  time 
of  the  conquest,  two  or  three  other  extensive  fam- 
ilies of  aborigines,  of  some  of  whom  distinct  strains 
remain  to  this  day.  The  principal  of  these  were  the 
Tarasco  Indians,  inhabiting  the  mountainous  re- 
gion west  of  the  lower  end  of  the  plateau  now  em- 


The  Tarascos.  23 

braced  in  the  states  of  Jalisco  and  Michoacan. 
These  number,  it  is  behevedj  even  yet  some  three 
hundred  thousand,  and  are  physically  of  a  small 
but  robust  and  vital  type.  They  had  not  acknowl- 
edged the  authority  of  the  Aztec  emperor,  but  had  a 
king  of  their  own,  with  a  capital  and  numerous  other 
towns  and  cities.  They  were  a  pacific  and  agricul- 
tural people,  whom  Cortez  reduced  to  subjection 
through  a  trick  played  upon  their  king.  Besides 
these  were  the  mountain  Indians  of  the  eastern  Sier- 
ra Madre,  now  known  under  the  general  designation 
of  Huastecos.  There  were  also  the  numerous  scat- 
tering and  somewhat  vagrant  tribes  of  the  dry  plains 
of  the  central  northern  part  of  the  country,  drifting 
back  and  forth  from  Mexico  into  what  is  now  the 
United  States. 

Such  were  the  ancestors  of  the  native  Mexican. 
They  were  Indians  in  the  sense  that  they  were  abo- 
riginal Americans,  but  they  bore  only  a  slight  resem- 
blance to  the  Indians  of  the  Mississippi  valley  and 
the  Atlantic  seaboard.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate 
with  any  degree  of  accuracy  what  proportion  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Mexico  to-day  are  pure-blooded  de- 
scendants of  these  Indian  ancestors.  So  easily  did 
the  native  tribes  mingle  with  the  European  invad- 
ers, and  so  slight  is  the  difference  in  complexion  and 
general  appearance  between  the  native  Mexican  and 
the  swarthy  sons  and  daughters  of  southern  Spain, 
that  the  strains  of  relationship  at  the  present  day 
are  about  as  intricate  in  Mexico  as  in  the  United 


24  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

States.  Just  as  here  Huguenots,  Germans,  Scan- 
dinavians, English,  Irish,  and  the  rest,  have  been 
fused  into  one  homogeneous  race,  so  in  Mexico 
Spaniard,  Creole,  Mestizo,  and  Indian  have  be- 
come inextricably  confused.  There  is,  however,  as 
I  have  already  said,  the  general  division  into  three 
sections,  namely,  the  people  of  more  or  less  pure 
European  blood,  those  of  mixed  blood,  and  the  full- 
blood  Indians. 

The  Indians  who  live  in  the  high  mountainous 
sections  and  have  preserved  their  languages  and  cus- 
toms are,  in  many  instances,  doubtless  full-blood  In- 
dians still.  So  also  many  families  of  wealth  and  so- 
cial position  have  kept  their  European  blood  intact. 
This  has  been  largely  by  the  accident  of  association 
and  local  influences,  rather  than  of  purpose.  There 
is  practically  no  prejudice  among  the  Mexican  peo- 
ple either  for  or  against  the  amalgamation  of  the 
races.  Families  that  are  of  purely  Spanish  de- 
scent take  no  special  pride  in  it,  but  speak  of  them- 
selves simply  as  Mexicans.  Those,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  have  mixed  or  purely  Indian  parentage 
often  plume  themselves  upon  it.  Many  of  the  great 
men  of  the  country  have  been  Indians.  This  stock 
has  exhibited  and  still  exhibits  every  element  which 
goes  to  make  up  the  best  there  is  in  humanity.  In 
view  of  the  oppression  and  degradation  which  the 
Spaniards  deliberately  inflicted  upon  the  Indians  in 
the  earlier  centuries  of  their  contact  with  them,  it 
is  scarcely  short  of  marvelous  that  the  native  stock 


The  Mestizos.  25 

should  have  shown  so  much  of  vitality  both  in  num- 
bers and  in  producing  its  proportionate  share  of  the 
great  men  of  Mexican  history. 

With  reference  to  the  people  of  mixed  blood,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  they  often  exhibit  the  well- 
known  tendency  to  follow  the  vices  and  weaknesses 
of  both  sides  of  their  ancestry  rather  than  their  vir- 
tues. This  has  been  due,  however,  not  solely  to  the 
accident  of  blood.  Their  anomalous  position  in  the 
nation  has  had  its  effect.  The  Spaniards  and  their 
descendants  have  been  to  some  extent  a  caste.  In- 
dians who  are  Indians,  especially  since  Mexico 
achieved  her  independence,  are  proud  of  it,  and  hold 
doggedly  to  their  racial  integrity.  They  are  also, 
to  a  large  extent,  agriculturalists,  and  lead  the  hardy 
and  independent  life  of  sons  of  the  soil.  Between 
these  two  extremes  are  the  people  of  mixed  blood, 
who  form  the  bulk  of  the  population  of  most  towns 
and  cities.  They  are  the  servants,  the  artisans,  and 
the  detached  element  in  the  population  generally, 
without  the  strengthening  influences  of  wealth  or 
family  position,  and  subject  to  the  insidious  tempta- 
tions which  beset  a  servile  class.  They  should  con- 
stitute the  great  middle  class  of  the  people.  But 
Mexican  society  has  for  four  hundred  years  been  or- 
ganized in  such  a  way  as  to  eliminate  the  middle 
class.  Those,  therefore,  who  should  by  rights  be 
members  of  it  are  constantly  oscillating  between  at- 
tainment to  the  standing  and  privileges  of  the  rul- 
ing class  and  subjection  to  the  accepted  poverty  and 


26  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

submission  of  the  lower.  They  affect  to  despise  man- 
ual labor,  a  weakness  that  has  always  been  exhibited 
by  the  upper  class  in  Mexico,  and  thus  often  under- 
take to  live  by  their  wits  when  they  should  depend  on 
honest  toil.  The  thievery  and  general  unreliability 
which  are  frequently  harshly  attributed  to  the  whole 
Mexican  people  have  really  grown  out  of  this  unset- 
tled position  of  a  large  element  in  the  population 
of  the  cities  and  towns.  The  Federal  census  of  1900 
estimates  that  the  Indians  constitute  thirty-eight  per 
cent,  of  the  population,  the  people  of  mixed  blood 
forty-three  per  cent.,  and  those  of  pure  European 
blood  nineteen  per  cent. 

The  Spanish  language  is  in  general  use  through- 
out the  country.  A  few  of  the  Indian  tribes  still 
speak  their  native  languages,  and  many  individ- 
uals among  them,  especially  in  remote  mountain  re- 
gions, are  ignorant  of  Spanish.  But  with  one  or  two 
exceptions  these  languages  have  not  been  reduced 
to  writing,  and  even  when  this  has  been  done,  the 
slender  opportunities  for  culture  open  to  the  In- 
dians have  prevented  any  notable  literary  use  of 
them.  The  result  is  that  Spanish  is  the  language 
of  the  literature  and  business  affairs  of  the  whole 
country,  the  Indian  dialects  lingering  stubbornly 
nevertheless.  Some  of  these — the  Aztec,  or  Mex- 
ican, the  Otomi,  the  Tarascan,  and  the  Huaste- 
can,  among  others — are  well-organized  languages, 
quite  capable  of  a  flexible  and  literary  use.  The 
Spanish  one  hears  in  Mexico  is  pure  Spanish,  though 


Mexico  and  Egypt.  27 

exhibiting  one  or  two  slight  pecuHarities  in  the  pro- 
nunciation and  having  in  common  use  a  large  num- 
ber of  Indian  terms,  together  with  not  a  few  provin- 
cialisms. 

In  their  manner  of  life,  both  in  city  and  country, 
the  Mexicans  have  much  in  common  with  the  peo- 
ple of  western  Asia  and  northern  Africa.  So  man- 
ifest is  the  resemblance  to  the  latter  that,  taken  with 
certain  traits  of  the  stone  carving  and  architecture 
of  the  pre-European  period,  it  has  suggested  to 
many  a  racial  connection  with  Egypt.  The  ingen- 
ious theories  propounded  to  account  for  this,  such, 
for  example,  as  the  revival  of  the  myth  about  the 
buried  continent  of  Atlantis,  have  not  commended 
themselves  to  careful  students.  It  seems  more  prob- 
able that  such  resemblances  as  antedated  the  coming 
of  the  Spanish  were  purely  accidental,  and  that  the 
rest  are  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  strong  Moorish 
influence  in  Spain  about  the  time  of  the  conquest  of 
Mexico,  and  the  similarity  in  climatic  conditions 
between  the  dry  mesas  of  Mexico  and  the  arid  pla- 
teaus east  and  south  of  the  Mediterranean.  The 
domestic  animals,  the  utensils,  the  pastoral  atmos- 
phere and  phraseology,  the  manner  of  building  hous- 
es, stables,  granaries,  sheepfolds,  and  the  like,  are  all 
so  similar  to  what  obtained  in  Palestine  two  thou- 
sand years  ago,  that  a  visit  to  Mexico  serves  as  an 
instructive  commentary  on  the  Bible. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Early  History, 

It  will  be  interesting  to  follow  up  briefly  the  be- 
ginnings of  Mexican  history  as  outlined  in  the  pre- 
vious chapter.  The  earliest  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
try who  were  sufficiently  civilized  to  leave  traces  of 
their  existence  were,  as  has  been  stated,  the  Mayas. 
The  origin  of  this  race  is  unknown.  They  lived 
principally  in  Yucatan,  though  some  believe  that  at 
one  period  they  occupied  also  the  interior  of  the 
country.  After  them  came  the  Nahoas,  the  princi- 
pal tribe  of  which,  the  Toltecs,  reached  a  state  of 
civilization  which  resulted  in  the  building  of  cities 
and  the  impression  of  their  culture  upon  their  suc- 
cessors, the  various  tribes  of  the  Chichimecs.  Both 
these  and  the  Nahoas  traced  their  origin  to  the  west ; 
some  think  the  southwest — that  is.  South  America ; 
others  believe  that  they  came,  as  did  the  Aztecs  later, 
from  California  or  Arizona. 

Last  of  all  was  the  irruption  into  the  fertile  val- 
leys of  the  lower  apex  of  the  Mexican  plateau  of 
seven  kindred  tribes  from  Arizona  and  regions 
thereabout.  Of  them  the  best  known  came  to  be 
the  Tecpanecas,  Tlaltolecas,  and  the  Aztecas.  The 
latter  arrived  last  of  all,  their  fellow  tribes  having 
preceded  them  and  settled  mostly  in  the  valley  of 
Mexico,  as  it  later  was  to  be  called.  This  is  a  large 
(28) 


Early  Aztec  History.  29 

basin  in  the  mountains,  containing  a  series  of  fresh- 
water lakes  terminating  at  the  bottom  in  a  salt  lake, 
Texcoco.  Near  the  margin  of  this  lake  the  Tec- 
panecas  already  had  their  capital,  Azcapotzalco — 
now  a  suburb  of  Mexico  City. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  when  the  Aztecs  arrived 
and,  under  the  direction  of  their  medicine  men,  set- 
tled upon  a  rocky  island  in  Lake  Texcoco,  they  found 
themselves  in  a  region  claimed  by  their  cousins  the 
Tecpanecas.  These  had  developed  a  vigorous  gov- 
ernment with  a  king  or  chief  in  Azcapotzalco.  The 
Aztecs  accepted  allegiance  under  this  king,  paying- 
tribute  each  year  of  fish  and  ducks  from  the  lake. 

Meantime,  other  branches  of  this  same  migra- 
tion having  settled  adjacent  to  the  capital  city  of  the 
Chichimecs,  Texcoco,  situated  on  the  eastern  side  of 
the  lake,  for  a  time  admitted  the  sovereignty  of  its 
king.  Later,  when  they  had  grown  strong  and  self- 
reliant,  they  threw  off  his  authority,  fought  among 
themselves,  and  brought  on  a  period  of  great  con- 
fusion. Then  a  shrewd  Chichimec  king  adopted  some 
new-comers  of  the  same  stock  into  his  tribe,  married 
his  sons  with  their  daughters,  and  thus  braced  liis 
tottering  throne  by  a  hardy,  civilized,  and  warlike 
addition  to  the  population.  Such  was  the  state  of 
affairs  when  the  Aztecs,  tiring  of  their  ])osition 
of  subjects  to  the  king  of  Azcapotzalco,  and  having 
themselves  grown  numerous  and  built  up  their  island 
city, — which  they  called  Tenochtitlan. — elected  a 
king  or  chief  of  their  own  and  forced  the  Tecpanecas 


30  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

to  recognize  them  as  allies  instead  of  subjects.  It 
was  not  long,  of  course,  before  war  broke  out  be- 
tween them  and  the  king  of  Texcoco.  Their  capitals 
were  on  the  same  lake,  not  far  apart,  and  irritating 
conflicts  of  authority  were  not  wanting.  So  fierce 
and  successful  were  the  Aztec  warriors,  under  young 
Moctezuma,  that  they  soon  vanquished  the  Chichi- 
mec  king  and  began  to  force  their  way  to  the  very 
front  among  the  various  tribes  of  the  valley  of  Mex- 
ico. 

During  something  like  fifty  years,  the  latter  part 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  they  were  engaged  in  a 
series  of  bloody  wars,  mostly  wars  of  conquest.  So 
fierce  and  arrogant  did  they  become  that  if  a  tribe 
dared  to  offer  resistance  to  their  arms,  or  refuse 
tribute  to  their  king,  nothing  prevented  their  going 
at  once  to  reduce  it,  unless  it  was  at  such  a  distance 
from  their  capital  as  to  make  the  expedition  seem 
futile.  The  huge  multitudes  of  captives  which  they 
brought  back  from  their  forages  seem  to  have  been 
the  original  prompting  of  the  bloody  rite  of  human 
sacrifice  which  so  shocked  the  Spaniards  on  their 
arrival  a  little  later.  Something  had  to  be  done 
with  these  captives.  Many  became  slaves  and  col- 
onists. Others  were  too  brave  and  dangerous  to  be 
left  alive.  Nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  a 
warlike  people  should  have  as  one  of  their  deities  a 
God  of  War.  So  by  easy  stages  came  about  the 
sacrifice  of  war  prisoners  to  him.  Some  even  sus- 
pect that  these  bloody  rites  involved  cannibalism.    If 


Human  Sacrifices.  31 

so,  it  was  of  tfie  nature  of  a  religious  ceremony. 
There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  high-minded 
warriors  of  Mexico  ever  ate  human  flesh  because  it 
pleased  them  as  an  ordinary  article  of  diet. 

The  human  sacrifices  were  a  sad  and  bloody  af- 
fair.   Only  the  heart  of  the  victim  was  offered,  and 
it  was  believed  to  be  more  acceptable  living  than 
dead.     Hence  the  ceremony  consisted  in  extracting 
and  holding  it  up  before  the  grewsome  image  while 
still  throbbing.     For  this  purpose  the  condemned 
prisoner  was  held  upon  his  back  on  a  huge  stone,  one 
of  which  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  National  Museum, 
his  head  strained  downward  by  a  heavy  stone  yoke 
on  his  neck,  while  the  officiating  priest  opened  his 
chest  with  an  obsidian  knife,  rudely  tearing  out  the 
palpitating  heart.    The  Spanish  priests  and  soldiers, 
with  that   fondness  for  exaggeration  which  never 
forsook  them,  gave  most  unreasonable  and  impos- 
sible estimates  of  the  number  of  victims  thus  sac- 
rificed from  time  to  time. 

Moctezuma  from  being  the  commanding  general 
of  the  army  was  later  made  king,  since  he  was  of 
royal  blood.  After  extending  the  power  of  his 
tribe  throughout  almost  the  entire  valley,  he  died 
in  1469,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  grandson,  Ax- 
ayacatl.  After  twelve  years,  Tizoc,  brother  of  Ax- 
ayacatl,  succeeded  him  and  began  the  construction 
of  a  new  and  sumptuous  temple  to  the  God  of  War, 
Huitzilopochtli.  Trying  himself  of  poison  in  i486, 
he  left  the  conclusion  of  it  to  his  younger  brother 


32  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

and  successor,  Ahuitzatl  (beaver).  Having,  ac- 
cording to  a  custom,  waged  a  campaign  of  conquest 
to  celebrate  his  accession,  this  new  king  brought 
back  a  swarm  of  prisoners  to  be  victims  in  hon- 
or of  the  dedication  of  the  temple.  The  chron- 
iclers would  have  us  believe  that  twenty  thousand 
(some  go  as  high  as  eighty  thousand)  were  sacri- 
ficed. The  number  is  not  merely  incredible ;  it  is  sim- 
ply impossible.  A  brief  calculation  on  the  terms  of 
their  own  narrative,  which  says  the  ceremonies  last- 
ed four  days,  will  show  that  the  number  of  victims 
could  not  have  gone  beyond  three  or  four  thousand. 

This  dedication  of  the  temple  of  the  War  God 
took  place  in  1487.  The  vast  concurrence  of  peo- 
ple, the  shedding  of  so  much  blood,  the  throwing 
out  to  decay  of  so  many  corpses,  the  general  ex- 
citement and  relaxation  of  the  occasion,  produced, 
so  it  seemed,  and  so  it  may  well  be  believed,  a  whole- 
sale demoralization  of  the  capital  city,  ending  in  a 
pestilence.  Such  a  religious  festival  was  a  melan- 
choly degeneration  from  the  clean  and  wholesome 
rites  by  which  the  Toltecs,  and  even  the  ancestors  of 
the  Aztecs,  a  peaceful  and  agricultural  community, 
adored  the  sun  as  the  origin  of  their  blessings  and 
offered  to  him  the  first  fruits  of  their  harvests. 

Five  years  later  Columbus  touched  the  shores  of 
the  New  World.  The  savage  and  warlike  monarch 
who  had  presided  over  this  dedicatory  ceremony, 
slaying  himself  the  first  victim,  had  continued  his 
course  of  war  and  conquest.     His  people  learned  to 


i 


Moctezuma  II.  33 

work  in  the  soft  stone  which  was  discovered  near 
the  shore  of  their  lake  about  that  time,  and  buih 
still  more  ample  and  substantial  edifices  in  the  cap- 
ital city.  In  1499  it  was  a  victim  of  one  of  the  great 
rain  storms  that  visit  that  region  from  time  to  time. 
The  other  lakes  in  the  valley  empty  into  Texcoco, 
which,  having  no  outlet,  rose  on  this  occasion  higher 
and  higher  till  it  overflowed  all  the  lower  stories 
of  the  city's  houses.  The  king,  happening  to  be  in 
a  basement  when  the  water  began  to  pour  in,  ran 
out  hastily,  striking  his  forehead  against  the  low 
doorway,  a  blow  from  which  he  never  recovered. 
At  his  death,  three  years  later,  another  Moctezu- 
ma was  made  king — Moctezuma  Xocoyotzin  (the 
younger). 

This  Moctezuma  was  a  great-grandson  of  the  one 
who  had  been  a  famous  chief  previously.  Elevated 
to  the  position  of  supreme  power  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
four,  after  he  had  become  famous  as  a  soldier,  and 
while  exercising  the  prerogatives  of  high  priest  in 
the  temple  of  the  God  of  War,  he  became  a  tyran- 
nical and  autocratic  ruler,  with  exalted  conceptions 
of  his  own  dignity  and  importance.  With  his  army 
he  at  once  went  upon  a  campaign  of  conquest  to  ob- 
tain prisoners  for  the  human  sacrifices  that  were  to 
mark  his  accession  to  the  throne.  Having  subdued, 
one  by  one,  the  tribes  in  the  adjacent  valley,  he  and 
his  generals  later  sought  occasion  to  declare  war 
against  the  vigorous  republic  of  Tlaxcala.  The  peo- 
ple of  Tlaxcala  were  one  of  the  kindred  tribes  from 
3 


34  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

the  North,  who,  having  settled  a  Httle  further  east 
in  a  beautiful  valley  among  the  mountains,  had  de- 
veloped a  vigorous  government  republican  in  form. 
The  Mexicans  invaded  this  republic  on  some  pretext, 
but  really  because  the  ambitions  of  their  king  de- 
manded its  subjugation.  But  the  Tlaxcalans  were 
people  of  the  same  hardy  stock,  and  by  surprising 
the  invading  army  in  the  mountain  passes  they  in- 
flicted upon  it  a  disastrous  defeat.  The  attack  was 
followed  by  a  second,  even  more  formidable,  which 
was  also  repulsed  with  great  loss  to  the  invaders. 

Domestic  affairs  then  for  a  time  claimed  the  at- 
tention of  the  Mexican  king.  He  extended  the 
buildings  of  his  capital  city,  brought  fresh  water  in 
from  a  spring  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  of  Chapultepec 
on  the  neighboring  main-land,  and  took  such  meas- 
ures as  were  possible  to  relieve  his  people  after  the 
ravages  of  a  fierce  drought.  From  time  to  time  he 
renewed  the  war  with  Tlaxcala,  and  also  sent  out 
more  than  one  expedition  against  the  Indians  of 
Michoacan.  Of  both  these  independent  enemies  of 
the  Mexican  emperor,  as  some  historians  have  cho- 
sen to  call  him,  there  will  be  occasion  to  make  men- 
tion later.  The  people  of  Tlaxcala  became  friends 
and  allies  of  the  Spaniards  when  they  arrived,  and  in 
all  likelihood  saved  the  little  army  of  Cortez  from 
annihilation. 

Far  to  the  west,  among  the  green  mountains  of 
Michoacan,  was  the  independent  monarchy,  if  so  dig- 
nified and  serious  a  term  is  admissible,  of  the  Taras- 


The  Tarascan  Kingdom.  35 

cans.  Their  king  had  his  capital  on  the  margin  of 
Lake  Patzcuaro,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  fresh-wa- 
ter lakes  on  the  American  continent.  Embowered  in 
pine-clad  mountains,  it  is  still  surrounded  by  a  neck- 
lace of  towns  inhabited  mostly  by  full-blooded  Tar- 
ascan Indians.  The  town,  which  w^as  at  that  time 
the  capital  of  an  extensive  government — though  one 
that  was  not  at  all  compact  in  its  organization — is 
now  a  somewhat  dilapidated  village;  still  called, 
however,  by  its  ancient  name  of  Tzintzuntzan.  or 
"place  of  humming  birds."  -V  great  painting  by  the 
Spanish  master,  Titian,  said  to  have  been  the  gift  of 
one  of  the  kings  of  Spain  to  the  Indian  king  of  Mich- 
oacan,  still  hangs  in  the  parish  church.  The  efforts 
of  Moctezuma  to  reduce  this  tribe  of  Indians  to  sub- 
jection to  his  Mexican  empire  were  as  fruitless  as 
were  his  attacks  upon  Tlaxcala.  The  Tarascans 
were  not  a  warlike  people,  but  were  too  numerous 
and  too  secure  in  their  mountain  fastnesses  to  be  sub- 
dued by  any  military  expedition  which  Moctezuma 
was  able  to  send  against  them.  Such  was  the  situa- 
tion in  Mexico  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish  invasion. 

Much  has  been  written,  first  and- last,  concerning 
tlie  civilization,  languages,  customs,  and  .state  of  ad- 
vancement of  the  Mexican  Indians  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest.  Certain  it  is  that  they  had  developed  an 
admirable  calendar,  had  mastered  some  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  architecture  in  stone,  and  had 
devised  civil  institutions  concerning  the  elaborateness 
of  which  there  are  many  and  various  opinions.    The 


36  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

early  records  left  us  by  the  soldiers  and  ecclesiastics 
of  the  invading  Spanish  forces  are  so  frequently 
contradictory,  and  in  many  respects  so  manifestly 
exaggerated,  that  they  do  not  command  absolute  cre- 
dence. In  contrast  with  their  exaltation  of  the  civ- 
ilization and  power  of  the  native  races  was  the  unrea- 
sonable urgency  on  the  part  especially  of  the  priests 
to  destroy  and  obliterate  all  records  and  evidences  of 
the  religion  and  civilization  which  had  preceded  their 
advent.  The  social  and  political  institutions  of  the 
people  were,  according  to  a  well-known  law,  largely 
the  outcome  of  their  religious  faith ;  and  the  best  pos- 
sible gauge  of  their  quality  would  be  a  study  of  the 
religions  upon  which  they  were  founded.  But  the 
Spanish  priests  were  unhesitating  in  their  belief 
that  all  the  religious  rites,  ceremonies,  temples, 
and  records  were  a  work  of  the  devil.  They 
therefore  destroyed  them,  right  and  left.  As 
usually  happens,  the  priests  of  the  aboriginal  re- 
ligions were  also  the  learned  men  of  the  different 
tribes,  and  such  records  in  picture-writing,  and  the  , 

like,  as  existed  were  usually  written  and  kept  by  ft;:  I 

them.      This  treasure  of  accumulated  manuscripts  '■•■ 

(in  parenthesis  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  In- 
dians understood  the  manufacture  of  an  excellent 
grade  of  paper  made  of  maguey  fiber)  was  almost 
completely  lost  to  the  world  through  the  zeal  of  men 
who  could  not  understand  that,  in  order  to  convince 
people  of  other  faiths  of  the  truths  of  Christianity, 
it  is  w^ell  as  far  as  may  be  to  accept  their  own  reli- 


Mexican  Agriculture.  37 

gious  ideas  as  legitimate  in  their  sphere  and  as  hav- 
ing in  themselves  also  a  basis  of  truth. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  at  the  time  when  America 
was  discovered  by  Europeans  the  Aztecs  and  their 
neighbors  had  developed  into  a  warlike  and  power- 
ful nation,  it  is  true  still  that  the  Indian  tribes  of 
Mexico  were  essentially  agricultural  in  their  habits. 
They  were  not  mere  wandering  warriors  living  by 
rapine  and  the  chase,  as  were  so  many  tribes  inhab- 
iting the  territory  which  is  now  the  United  States. 
Before  the  coming  of  the  Spaniards  they  cultivated 
corn,  beans,  chocolate,  pepper,  tomatoes,  cotton,  on- 
ions, garlic,  pumpkins,  various  succulent  roots,  and 
a  number  of  different  nuts  and  fruits.  The  Span- 
iards added  comparatively  little  to  the  aggregate  of 
agricultural  products,  only  bringing  in  wheat,  barley, 
and  oats,  with  a  few  kinds  of  fruits,  and  introducing 
domestic  animals  and  better  tools.  It  is  interesting 
to  note  that  the  plow  which  they  brought  is  the 
Moorish  plow,  and  dates  back  in  northern  Africa  and 
Asia  to  prehistoric  times.  It  may  be  seen  in  Mexico, 
unchanged  to  this  day,  an  evidence  of  the  conserva- 
tism of  the  people  and  of  the  unfortunate  fact  that 
they  remain  yet  almost  in  the  same  state  in  which 
they  found  themselves  immediately  after  the  Spanish 
conquest.    With  that  conquest  we  must  now  deal. 


CHAPTER  V. 
The  Spanish  Conquest. 

No  more  hardy  band  of  adventurers  ever  landed 
upon  an  alien  shore  than  the  company  which,  under 
the  lead  of  Hernando  Cortez,  drew  to  land  on  the 
2 1  St  of  April,  1 5 19,  inside  the  rocky  island  of  San 
Juan  de  Ulloa  and  on  the  sandy  beach  where  now 
Stands  the  city  of  Vera  Cruz.  This  point  had  been 
visited  a  little  more  than  a  year  before  by  Hernandez 
de  Cordova,  who,  with  Juan  de  Grijalva,  had  ex- 
plored the  coast  of  Yucatan  and  the  adjacent  islands, 
turning-  back  at  last  from  the  shore  of  the  main-land 
with  stories  of  an  immense  empire,  rich  in  gold  and 
precious  stones,  which  lay  far  in  the  interior. 

Cuba  and  other  West  Indian  islands  had  been  set- 
tled by  the  Spaniards  in  the  years  following  the  voy- 
ages and  discoveries  of  Christopher  Columbus.  In 
151 1,  Diego  Velasquez,  who,  from  having  been  a 
servant  in  the  house  of  Diego  Columbus,  brother  of 
Don  Christopher,  became  later  the  colonial  governor 
of  the  island  of  Espahola,  was  transferred  to  the 
larger  island  of  Cuba,  recently  vanquished  by  the 
Spanish  arms,  taking  with  him,  among  others,  his 
private  secretary,  Don  Hernando  Cortez.  This 
young  man  was  a  native  of  the  Spanish  city  of  Me- 
dellin,  where  he  was  born  in  the  year  1485.  Run- 
ning away  from  school  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years, 
(38) 


Early  Years  of  Cortez.  39 

he  had,  after  various  difficulties,  secured  passage  to 
the  New  World,  where,  on  the  island  of  Santo  Do- 
mingo, he  was  living  as  a  farmer  and  land-owner  at 
the  time  when  his  friend,  Don  Diego,  was  made  gov- 
ernor of  the  island  of  Cuba.  In  the  skirmishes  which 
preceded  the  settlement  of  this  new  government  he 
distinguished  himself  as  an  intrepid  soldier,  and 
when  the  lands  and  slaves  captured  in  the  conquest 
were  divided  among  the  followers  of  the  governor 
general,  he  received  a  large  assignment  of  both  in 
the  province  of  Santiago. 

The  voyages  of  discovery  among  the  islands  and 
along  the  peninsula  of  Yucatan  mentioned  above 
were  undertaken  under  the  direction  and  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  new  governor  general  of  Cuba.  Having 
become  convinced  by  the  reports  brought  back  by 
his  two  captains  that  there  were  great  opportunities 
for  procuring  booty  on  the  main-land  of  Mexico,  he 
organized  a  new  and  larger  expedition  under  the  spe- 
cial pretext  of  sending  it  in  search  of  Grijalva,  who, 
having  gone  out  with  one  or  two  ships  on  an  explor- 
ing trip,  had  not  been  heard  from.  Velasquez  was 
much  concerned  to  find  a  proper  captain  general 
for  this  new  and  somewhat  formidable  expedition. 
It  was  of  the  utmost  importance  to  him  that  both  the 
glory  and  the  booty  of  the  voyage  should  be  his.  Yet 
it  was  easy  to  see  that  the  man  having  charge  of  it 
might  put  himself  into  communication  directly  with 
the  roya^  government  of  Spain,  and  thus  rob  the  real 
promoter  of  the  expedition  of  all  credit  that  might 


40  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

accrue.  For  it  was  well  known  that  the  Spanish  gov- 
ernment was  as  greedy  for  added  territory  and  added 
spoils  as  any  of  the  ardent  adventurers  who  crossed 
the  waters  in  this  crusade.  After  much  hesitation, 
the  governor  finally  decided  to  offer  the  command  of 
the  expedition  to  his  friend  and  former  secretary, 
Don  Hernando.  They  had  not  always  been  on  good 
terms,  and  one  disagreement  had  well-nigh  proved 
serious  for  the  adventurous  secretary.  But  his  abil- 
ity was  well  known  to  his  superior,  who,  after  all, 
was  chiefly  interested  in  the  success  of  the  expedi- 
tion. 

So,  toward  the  year  15 15,  the  ships  of  the  new 
flotilla  were  gathered  at  Santiago  de  Cuba,  from 
which  point  they  sailed  away,  stopping  for  a  week 
at  Macaca,  and  a  little  later  at  Habana.  The  fleet 
consisted  of  eleven  ships  carrying  five  hundred  and 
eight  soldiers,  thirteen  of  them  armed  with  muskets 
and  thirty-two  with  crossbows,  sixteen  horses,  ten 
pieces  of  brass  artillery,  and  four  falconets.  The  sol- 
diers had  been  recruited  under  the  royal  banner  of 
Spain,  beside  which  Cortez  had  the  presumption 
to  raise  another  in  imitation  of  that  of  Constan- 
tine,  bearing  a  cross  with  this  inscription  in  Latin : 
"Friends,  with  true  faith  let  us  follow  the  cross,  for 
thereby  we  shall  conquer." 

On  the  peninsula  of  Yucatan  they  picked  up  a  cap- 
tive Spanish  priest  and  a  few  natives.  Among  these 
was  an  Aztec  slave  girl  named  Marina,  who  still  re- 
membered well  her  native  language.    She  also  knew 


The  Founding  of  Vera  Cruz.  41 

Maya,  the  language  of  her  captors,  in  which  she  was 
able  to  converse  with  Father  Aguilar,  the  priest,  who 
had  learned  it  during  his  captivity.  She  was  of  at- 
tractive person  and  sprightly  intellect,  and  became  a 
devoted  attendant  of  the  captain  general.  When  ne- 
gotiations with  the  Aztecs  were  later  entered  upon, 
she  translated  their  messages  into  Maya  for  Father 
Aguilar,  who  then  gave  them  to  his  captain  in  Span- 
ish. Long  before  the  conquest  was  consummated, 
however,  she  had  herself  acquired  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage. 

Landing  on  the  shore  of  Mexico  where  it  is  pro- 
tected by  the  rocky  island  of  San  Juan.  Cortez 
shrewdly  took  advantage  of  the  Spanish  law  giving 
a  certain  power  of  autonomy  to  municipalities,  and 
founded  the  Villa  Rica  de  la  Vera  Cruz — that  is,  the 
Rich  City  of  the  True  Cross.  The  proper  officers 
were  elected  according  to  the  royal  law,  and,  as  sym- 
bolic of  the  power  of  the  new  government,  a  gallows 
was  set  up,  and  hard  by  a  picket  for  exposing  the 
heads  of  those  who  should  be  executed.  There  is  a 
grim  significance  about  these  finishing  touches  in  the 
organizing  of  the  first  ayuntamiento  on  Mexican  soil 
which  will  not  escape  the  reader.  So  soon  as  the  city 
government  was  duly  established  the  captain  general 
resigned  to  it  the  commission  he  had  received  from 
the  governor  of  CuBa.  He  was  promptly  elected 
commander  in  chief,  and  at  the  same  time  appointed 
civil  governor.  Thus  at  one  stroke  he  cut  himself 
loose  from  every  obligation  to  Velasquez  and  put 


42  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

himself  at  the  head  of  all  the  powers,  both  civil  and 
military,  of  this  newest  of  Spanish  colonies. 

Cortez  soon  decided  upon  the  bold  and  daring  step 
of  destroying  his  ships.  Having  selected  two  or 
three  of  his  most  faithful  and  loyal  friends,  he  sent 
them  with  one  ship  and  its  crew  to  report  directly  to 
the  King  of  Spain,  giving  him  an  account  of  the 
expedition  and  protesting  the  loyalty  of  his  new  col- 
onists. Then,  in  the  month  of  July  (1519),  having 
removed  from  the  ships  all  the  sails  and  cordage 
and  all  metals  that  might  be  of  service  in  building 
others,  he  sent  them  to  the  bottom.  Such  were  these 
hardy  sons  of  a  race  which  in  that  day  had  no  supe- 
rior in  physical  and  intellectual  vigor  and  in  all  the 
traits  which  go  to  make  up  the  successful  soldier  and 
explorer.  The  courage,  the  calmness,  the  resource- 
fulness, the  endurance,  both  physical  and  moral,  dis-  I 
played  by  Cortez  and  his  men,  during  the  two  years  y 
following  this  reckless  act,  form  a  contrast  to  the 
qualities  found  in  the  soldiers  of  Spain  to-day  which  j 
is  worthy  of  careful  study.                                                           I,, 

Meantime,  the  Mexican  king  and  his  court  were  | 

shaken  with  the  most  profound  anxiety.     Moctezu-  v 

ma,  though  he  had  been  a  bold  and  successful  war- 
rior in  his  youth,  had  been  much  affected  in  more  re- 
cent years  by  the  superstitions  and  prognostications 
of  the  priests.  He  was  himself  high  priest  at  the 
time  of  his  election  to  the  position  of  ruler.  A  tra- 
dition was  current  that  Quetzalcoatl  would  reappear. 
The  description  of  this  fabled  god  as  fair-skinned 


"The  Fair  God."  43 

and  bearded  tallied  so  with  the  appearance  of  the  Eu- 
ropeans that  the  superstitious  king  could  not  shake 
himself  clear  of  the  feeling  that  the  Spaniards  were 
divine.  Their  muskets,  their  cannon,  and  the  terrible 
horses  on  which  they  mounted  and  rode  to  victory, 
augmented  this  supernatural  impression.  Some  of 
the  priests  who  had  but  recently  essayed  the  role  of 
prophet  had  interpreted  certain  mystic  signs  and  in- 
cidents to  signify  that  the  king,  Moctezuma,  was 
soon  to  be  destroyed.  In  view  of  all  these  things,  he 
had  fallen  into  a  profound  melancholy,  and  instead 
of  boldly  preparing  to  resist  the  encroachments  of 
these  invaders,  he  began  to  send  them  embassy  after 
embassy  with  the  anxious  request  that  they  leave  him 
in  peace.  To  secure  their  compliance,  these  mes- 
sengers went  loaded  with  gold  and  precious  stones. 
These  presents,  far  from  encouraging  Cortez  and  his 
followers  to  leave  Mexico,  served  rather  the  purpose 
of  loadstones  to  attract  tliem  more  and  more.  Scarce- 
ly anything  in  history  is  more  humiliating  than  the 
consuming  avarice  which,  like  a  burning  thirst,  drew 
the  Spanish  invaders  on  wherever  they  touched  the 
New  World. 

On  the  1 6th  of  August,  15 19,  followed  by  his  own 
troops,  except  a  small  garrison  which  he  left  in  Vera 
Cruz,  by  several  thousands  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Campoalla,  a  neighboring  town,  and  some  hundreds 
of  Indian  burden-bearers  dragging  his  artillery,  the 
Spanish  captain  set  out  in  the  direction  of  the  interior 
highlands.    His  army  consisted  of  four  hundred  foot 


44  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

soldiers,  fifteen  cavalrymen,  and  six  pieces  of  artil- 
lery. 

On  the  way  to  Mexico  lay  the  republic  of  Tlax- 
cala.  Its  people  were  not  friendly  to  the  Aztecs,  and 
after  they  had  suffered  a  series  of  bloody  defeats  due 
to  the  superiority  of  the  Spanish  arms,  they  at  last 
made  an  alliance  with  Cortez  to  help  him  against 
Moctezuma.  Thus  reenforced,  the  Spanish  rapidly 
advanced  upon  the  valley  of  Mexico.  The  first  town 
of  importance  belonging  to  Moctezuma's  domain 
was  Cholula,  which  they  captured  and  pillaged  with 
inexcusable  brutality,  the  Tlaxcalans  wreaking  their 
hatred  upon  hereditary  enemies. 

Pressing  forward  as  autumn  drew  on,  despite  con- 
stant protests  from  the  Aztec  king,  early  in  Novem- 
ber Cortez  reached  without  further  serious  fighting 
the  island  city  of  Tenochtitlan,  before  whose  gates 
the  now  intimidated  monarch  met  him.  Having  pre- 
sented himself  in  state  before  Cortez,  who  received 
him  with  the  brusque  frankness  of  the  soldier,  he  told 
the  Spaniards  that  since  they  had  come  from  the 
East  and  were  evidently  sons  of  the  sun.  Mexico 
looked  upon  them  as  the  rightful  rulers  of  those  lands. 
(The  worship  of  the  sun  had  long  been  a  primary  ele- 
ment of  the  native  religion. )  A  day  later,  November 
lo,  1 5 19,  Cortez  returned  the  official  visit  and  entered 
the  sacred  city.  Under  the  guise  of  reasonable  curi- 
osity he  carefully  examined  its  approaches,  streets, 
buildings,  and  natural  defenses.  Several  of  his  fol- 
lowers, as  well  as  the  captain  himself,  have  left  ac- 


I 

I 


Cortez  Reaches  the  Capital.  45 

counts  of  Tenochtitlan  as  the  Spaniards  found  it. 
Bernal  Diaz,  Alonzo  de  Ojeda,  Andres  de  Papia, 
Alonzo  de  Mata,  and  an  anonymous  conquistador,  all 
wrote  descriptions  of  the  city  which  agree  in  their 
essential  particulars.  It  was  substantially  built,  of 
mud  bricks  for  the  most  part,  but  with  some  struc- 
tures in  stone,  along  streets  which  on  the  east  and 
south  terminated  in  the  lake,  while  to  the  west  and 
north  several  of  them  were  continued  in  causeways, 
extending  to  the  main-land  but  bridging  frequent  ca- 
nals through  which  canoes  might  pass. 

Having  been  assigned  a  spacious  palace  as  a  place 
of  residence,  the  Spaniards  made  themselves  at  home 
in  Mexico,  setting  up  an  altar  for  their  worship  and 
fortifying  their  house.  As  if  further  to  excite  their 
cupidity,  an  evil  fortune  led  them  to  discover  a  se- 
cret door  in  the  palace  which  had  been  turned  over 
to  them,  which,  on  being  broken  open,  revealed  a 
treasure-room  containing  a  large  quantity  of  gold. 
About  this  time  word  reached  Cortez  of  a  disastrous 
battle  in  which  his  Vera  Cruz  garrison  had  engaged 
through  coming  to  the  support  of  their  neighbors, 
the  Campoallans,  against  an  Aztec  army.  \  number 
of  the  Spaniards,  including  their  commander,  Juan 
Escalante,  were  killed,  and  one  taken  prisoner.  Hie 
Aztecs  sent  the  head  of  this  prisoner  all  the  way  to 
Mexico,  that  their  king  might  be  convinced  at  last 
that  these  invaders  were  not  immortal  beings.  Ad- 
vised of  this,  Cortez  called  a  council  and  appeared 
with  several  of  his  leaders  before  Moctezuma,  charg- 


46  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

ing  him  with  treachery.  The  king  made  the  very  just 
reply  that  the  conduct  of  his  soldiers  in  their  cam- 
paign against  a  rebellious  province  was  not  under 
his  immediate  supervision,  but  that  he  would  sur- 
render the  commander  of  these  troops,  with  his  prin- 
cipal officers,  to  the  Spaniards  so  soon  as  they  re- 
turned. When,  true  to  his  promise,  he  had  done  this, 
Cortez,  after  investigating  the  incidents  of  the  death 
of  his  fellow-countrymen,  though,  with  the  exception 
of  one  prisoner,  they  had  been  slain  in  warfare,  nev- 
ertheless condemned  the  general  with  his  son  and  fif- 
teen of  his  principal  associates  to  be  burned  alive. 
This  cruel  and  inexcusable  sentence  was  carried  out 
in  the  presence  of  Moctezuma  and  his  people,  and 
the  king  himself  was  henceforth  kept  a  prisoner  in 
the  palace  of  Cortez,  loaded  with  chains.  He  con- 
tinued to  beg  Cortez  to  withdraw,  insisting  that  his 
people  were  reaching  a  state  of  mind  such  that  he 
could  not  be  responsible  for  the  consequences. 

About  this  time  Cortez  and  Moctezuma  each  heard 
with  no  small  satisfaction  that  ships  had  arrived  off 
Vera  Cruz.  The  Indian  king  took  it  for  granted 
that  as  the  Spaniards  now  had  ships  they  would  at 
once  sail  away  to  their  own  country.  Cortez  was 
pleased,  because  he  expected  to  find  in  these  new 
arrivals  the  recruits  which  his  messengers  to  Spain 
had  sent  out.  Both  were  destined  to  be  soon  unde- 
ceived. The  new  arrivals  proved  to  be  a  fleet  of  fif- 
teen vessels,  bringing  some  eight  hundred  soldiers, 
which  had  been  sent  by  the  governor  general  of 


He  Recruits  His  Army.  47 

Cuba.  The  messengers  of  Cortez  to  Spain  had,  con- 
trary to  his  orders,  touched  at  Cuba  on  their  way,  and 
Velasquez,  perceiving  at  once,  from  the  accounts  they 
brought,  the  purpose  of  Cortez,  had  organized  and 
sent  this  expedition  to  arrest  him,  that  he  might 
secure  for  himself  the  fruits  of  the  voyage  of  con- 
quest. 

Leaving  Pedro  Alvarado  with  a  small  garrison  in 
Mexico,  Cortez  set  out  at  once  with  such  of  his  own 
troops  as  he  could  gather — for  many  of  them  had 
been  dispatched  to  interior  towns — and  marched  rap- 
idly to  the  coast.  His  hardened  veterans  made  a 
fierce  onslaught  by  night  on  the  sleeping  city  of  Vera 
Cruz,  now  in  possession  of  the  new  arrivals,  captiu-ed 
the  commander,  and  secured  the  surrender  of  his 
troops.  There  were  few  lost  on  either  side,  the  whole 
result  of  the  movement  being  the  addition  of  this 
new  force  to  the  army  of  Cortez.  Scarcely  any  other 
episode  in  the  history  of  this  daring  adventurer  dis- 
plays him  to  greater  advantage. 

In  possession  now  of  a  respectable  army,  he  at 
once  began  to  send  detachments  hither  and  thither 
throughout  the  country  in  order  to  establish  formally 
his  position  as  its  ruler.  Scarcely  had  he  begun  to 
plan  these  new  measures,  however,  when  word  came 
to  him  that  his  little  garrison  in  Tenochtitlan  was 
hard  pressed  and  in  need  of  immediate  succor.  This 
had  come  about  mostly  through  the  stupid  cruelty  of 
Alvarado,  who  had  without  provocation  murdered 
a  multitude  of  prominent  people  there. 


48  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

Cortez,  hurrying  back,  arrived  in  Mexico  June  24, 
1520,  greatly  to  the  rehef  of  his  beleaguered  lieuten- 
ant. He  visited  upon  Alvarado,  however,  no  severer 
punishment  than  a  reproof  for  his  conduct.  But, 
thoroughly  ashamed  of  it,  he  declined  to  see  Mocte- 
zuma,  and,  in  order  to  propitiate  somewhat  the  peo- 
ple, liberated  a  brother  of  the  king  that  he  might  help 
to  quiet  the  disturbed  city.  This  brother,  however, 
who  was  of  a  vigorous  and  warlike  spirit,  instead  of 
quieting  the  insurrection,  did  all  in  his  power  to  pro- 
mote it.  Within  twenty-four  hours  after  being  liber- 
ated, he  advanced  to  attack  the  Spaniards  with  a 
huge  army.  Then  began  the  bloody  struggle  in  the 
streets  of  the  Mexican  capital  which  resulted  at  the 
last  in  the  complete  defeat  and  ignominious  retire- 
ment of  the  invaders. 

For  five  days  the  attack  went  on.  Finding  himself 
hard  pressed,  Cortez  undertook  to  take  advantage  of 
the  influence  of  Moctezuma  as  in  a  critical  moment 
Alvarado  had  done.  The  king  again  ascended  to  the 
roof  of  the  palace  where  the  Spaniards  were  forti- 
fied, and  exhorted  his  people  to  desist.  The  sight  of 
him  on  this  occasion,  however,  instead  of  quieting 
only  irritated  them  the  more,  his  own  nephew  call- 
ing out  in  a  loud  voice  that  he  was  no  longer  their 
king.  This  youth  then  bending  his  bow  sent  an  ar- 
row flying  at  the  unhappy  captive,  and  the  shower  of 
stones  and  arrows  which  followed  drove  Moctezuma 
mortally  wounded  from  his  place.  The  Indians  re- 
newed their  attack  with  redoubled  bitterness. 


"La  Noche  Triste."  49 

The  position  of  the  Spaniards  finally  becoming  in- 
tolerable, Cortez  decided  to  force  his  way  out.  Pro- 
viding his  troops  with  a  movable  bridge  for  spanning 
the  gaps  in  the  causeway,  he  led  his  little  band  forth 
at  midnight.  Before  they  were  fairly  started,  how- 
ever, the  huge  tom-tom  on  the  high  Teocalli  alarmed 
the  city,  and  the  attacking  host  swarmed  upon  them 
like  angry  bees.  That  was  the  famous  Nochc  Triste, 
or  mournful  night.  Cortez  at  dawn  sat  down,  weary 
and  wounded,  under  a  cypress  which  is  still  shown, 
and  shed  tears  over  the  gallant  men  left  behind,  some 
dead,  others  prisoners — a  fate  worse  than  death,  for 
these  were  destinied  to  be  sacrificed  before  the  dread- 
ful God  of  War. 

Harassed  by  the  Mexicans,  whom  they  constantly 
repulsed  with  huge  slaughter,  the  Spaniards  slowly 
retiring  reached  the  city  of  their  allies,  the  Tlaxcal- 
ans.  Here  they  rested  during  the  winter,  recruited 
somewhat  in  numbers  by  the  crews  of  chance  ves- 
sels arriving  at  Vera  Cruz,  which  crews  Cortez  al- 
ways managed  to  attach  to  himself. 

The  next  summer,: 521,  he  again  attacked  the  cap- 
ital. This  time  the  city  was  approached  by  water, 
as  well  as  by  land,  the  Spaniards  having  built  and 
launched  a  number  of  brigantines.  The  warlike 
brother  of  Moctezuma,  who  had  succeeded  him,  had 
died  of  smallpox,  a  new  scourge  brought  by  the  Span- 
iards, which  decimated  the  whole  Aztec  empire.  He 
had  been  succeeded  by  Cuautemoc — "last  of  the  Az- 
tecs"— a  valiant  and  high-spirited  youth,  one  of  the 
4 


50  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

most  romantic  figures  in  history.  The  melancholy 
story  of  how  he  lost  his  kingdom  and  his  life  may  be 
read  in  the  pages  of  Prescott.  It  need  not  be  detailed 
here.  A  noble  bronze  statue  of  him,  surrounded  by 
figures  which  are  a  grim  commemoration  of  some  of 
the  cruelest  deeds  of  the  Spaniards  in  that  time  of 
blood,  stands  on  the  famous  Paseo  de  la  Reforma. 
placed  there  by  the  government  under  Porfirio  Diaz. 
In  August,  1 52 1,  the  city  of  Tenochtitlan  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards.  Since  that  date  it 
has  been  known  as  Mexico, 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Spain  in  Mexico. 

For  exactly  three  hundred  years,  from  1521  to 
182 1,  Mexico  was  reckoned  a  province  of  Spain  and 
called  Nueva  Espaiia,  New  Spain.     From  the  year 
1535  onward  the  administration  was  vice-regal.   The 
viceroys,  though  their  terms  were  limited  at  various 
times  by  royal  decrees  to  six  and  even  to  three  years, 
virtually  had  unlimited  tenure  of  office,  since  these 
decrees  were  systematically  disregarded.     Autocrat- 
ic in  power,  they  were  nevertheless  subject  to  the 
whim  of  the  King  of  Spain,  who  could  depose  or  re- 
call them  at  will,  and  to  the  supervision  of  a  self- 
perpetuating  royal  council  associated  with  him  called 
El  Consejo  de  las  Indias.   They  were  trammeled  also 
by  an  Aiidiencia  at  the  seat  of  their  government,  a 
sort  of  court  of  review,  ostensibly  appointed  to  au- 
dit their  accounts  and  see  that  the  royal  treasury  re- 
ceived its  due  share  from  the  income  of  the  province, 
but  becoming  with  time  a  check  upon  their  actions 
and  a  medium  of  communication  between  the  people 
and  the  court  of  Spain.     At  one  time,  for  exam- 
ple, a  viceroy  had  occasion  to  borrow  three  millions 
of  dolkirs.     The  money  was  cheerfully  lent  by  the 
merchants  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  since,  as  one  of 
their  own  historians  remarks,  the  system  of  checking 
the  accounts  of  these  representatives  of  the  Spanish 

(50 


52  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

throne  was  so  strict  that  the  lenders  ran  no  risk  of 
losing  their  money. 

It  is  unhappily  to  be  recorded,  however,  that  so 
unbounded  were  the  prerogatives  of  the  viceroys,  and 
so  vague  is  the  border  line  between  government  and 
oppression,  for  abuses  inflicted  by  these  officers  upon 
the  people  at  large  there  was  virtually  no  redress. 
The  native  population  was  indeed  looked  down  upon 
by  the  Spanish  crown  itself  to  such  a  degree  that 
treatment  of  them  which  would  have  been  thought 
intolerable  if  inflicted  upon  Europeans  seemed  to 
their  Spanish  majesties  to  call  for  no  special  censure. 

These  natives  of  Mexico  labored  from  the  begin- 
ning under  at  least  three  great  disadvantages.  First, 
they  were  "infidels."  A  great  deal  of  the  cruel  hos- 
tility with  which  the  Mohammedan  Moors  had  in- 
vested that  term  lingered  in  the  so-called  Christian 
theology  of  Spain.  It  originated  the  Spanish  Inqui- 
sition in  the  very  years  in  which  the  government  of 
that  country's  colonies  was  taking  shape.  It  justi- 
fied barbarities  in  the  administration  of  that  govern- 
ment, and  even  in  the  propagation  of  the  Christian 
faith,  that  the  clearer  vision  of  a  later  day  sees  to  be 
quite  out  of  harmony  with  the  Christian  spirit.  Sec- 
ondly, the  Indians  of  Mexico  were  to  the  governing 
Spaniards  of  alien  race.  Race  hatred  was  not  so 
acute  in  the  commingling  which  took  place  in  that 
country  as  it  has  been  in  many  others,  yet  it  was  nev- 
er wholly  absent.  In  the  third  place,  the  Indians 
were  helpless.     Only  one  or  two  tribes  of  them  had 


Early  Catholic  Missions.  53 

developed  a  warlike  temper,  and  these  had  been  sub- 
dued by  the  overwhelming  superiority  of  European 
arms.  The  remainder  were,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, pacific  and  timid.  They  yielded  to  their  op- 
pressors without  resistance,  almost  without  protest. 
Not  to  abuse  a  situation  like  that,  where  the  owner- 
ship of  fertile  lands  and  of  princely  deposits  of  min- 
erals is  involved,  is  not  in  human  nature,  least  of  all 
in  Spanish  human  nature. 

The  leaders  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  es- 
pecially of  the  great  religious  orders  within  that 
Church,  made  haste  to  enter  upon  the  undertaking 
of  converting  these  gentle  pagans  to  the  true  faith. 
In  this  the  soldiers,  having  altogether  mechanical 
notions  of  the  nature  of  true  religion,  cheerfully  as- 
sisted. They  even  made  it  a  pretext  for  new  cam- 
paigns of  conquest,  and  had  the  assurance  to  adorn 
the  banners  which  waved  over  some  of  their  bloodiest 
and  most  inexcusable  ventures  with  the  cross  of  the 
gentle  Christ.  The  story  of  their  manner  of  pro- 
moting the  cause  of  Christianity  is  enough  to  bring 
a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  any  Christian  who  reads  it. 

The  missionaries,  it  is  true,  were  often,  especially 
in  the  beginning,  self-denying  and  devout  men.  They 
were  a  little  narrow,  to  be  sure,  and  broke  up  idols 
and  destroyed  records  that  would  be  of  inestimable 
value  now  had  they  been  preserved.  Some  of  them, 
notably  Fray  Bartolome  de  las  Casas,  became  ardent 
and  fearless  champions  of  the  Indians  and  their 
rights  as  against  their  oppressors.    A  Mexican  paint- 


54  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

er,  in  a  powerful  canvas  which  now  hangs  in  the  San 
Carlos  Academy  in  Mexico  City,  has  paid  tribute  to 
las  Casas  as  the  "Protector  of  the  Indians." 

Unfortunately  the  doctrines  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  its  practice  of  the  monastic  system,  are 
not  calculated  to  perpetuate  gentleness  and  justice  in 
the  administration  of  missionary  affairs.  The  teach- 
ing of  implicit  obedience,  for  example,  paid  under 
vows  by  the  monks  to  their  superiors  and  under  the 
whip  of  the  confessional  by  the  converts  to  the 
priests,  is  one  which  tends  powerfully  to  the  corrup- 
tion of  human  nature.  In  addition  to  this,  the  rival- 
ries of  the  different  orders  in  Mexico  made  each 
greedy  of  property  and  of  power;  and  the  result  was 
soon  seen  in  such  a  concentration  of  the  wealth  of 
this  new  and  fecund  country  within  the  establish- 
ments of  the  monastic  orders  as  permanently  to  dis- 
turb its  peace  and  well-being.  As  early  as  1644  the 
city  council  of  Mexico  City  forwarded  to  Philip 
IV.  of  Spain  a  formal  petition  to  allow  the  estab- 
lishment of  no  more  convents  and  monasteries  in 
New  Spain.  The  document  declares  that  there  were 
already  so  many  monks  and  nuns  there  that  they 
were  quite  out  of  proportion  to  the  total  population ; 
besides  which,  there  seemed  to  be  great  danger  that 
they  would  get  possession  of  all  the  property  in  the 
country,  of  which  they  already  owned  half.  It  goes 
on  to  request  a  special  order  to  the  bishops  that  they 
should  ordain  no  more  priests,  since  there  were  al- 
ready more  than  six  thousand  who  were  absolutely 


Religious  Orders.  55 

without  occupation;  and  that  steps  should  be  taken 
to  diminish  the  number  of  hoHdays,  of  which  there 
were  two  or  three  each  week,  a  state  of  affairs  tend- 
ing greatly  to  the  increase  of  laziness !  This  naive 
petition  unhappily  received  no  notice  on  the  part  of 
the  court  of  Spain,  a  neglect  which  was  afterw^ards 
bitterly  atoned  for  by  all  concerned.  The  activity  of 
these  religious  orders  resulted  finally  in  a  total  of 
one  hundred  and  seventy-nine  monasteries  and 
eighty-five  nunneries.  The  Franciscans  led,  with 
fifty-two  out  of  the  one  hundred  and  seventy-nine; 
the  Dominicans  had  thirty,  and  the  Augustinians 
twenty-six. 

The  vicegeral  period  in  Mexico,  though  so  long, 
was  singularly  uneventful.  The  administration  of 
Mexican  affairs  during  that  period  derived  its  char- 
acter from  the  two  influences  most  potent  in  Spain, 
the  Spanish  monarchy  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  Both  these  were  cast  in  molds  so  fixed  that 
for  three  hundred  years  their  variation  was  insignifi- 
cant. The  viceroys  came  and  went.  They  rarely 
held  the  position  more  than  four  or  five  years, 
though,  as  has  been  remarked,  no  attention  was  paid 
by  the  Spanish  croAvn  to  the  limits  once  or  twice  set. 
A  humane  and  popular  man,  with  a  diplomatic  tal- 
ent equal  to  the  task  of  keeping  down  complaints 
against  himself,  might  remain  a  dozen  years.  Usu- 
ally, however,  they  returned  voluntarily,  or  were  re- 
called, after  terms  averaging  about  four  years. 

It  seemed  to  be  considered  one  of  the  perquisites 


56  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

of  the  position  that  the  viceroy  should  enrich  him- 
self. He  was  absolute  master  of  the  financial  admin- 
istration of  a  rich  and  productive  province.  His  es- 
tablishment was  an  expensive  affair,  to  be  sure,  but 
his  salary  was  forty  thousand  dollars  a  year.  By 
farming  out  the  taxation,  selling  special  grants  and 
privileges,  and,  in  spite  of  constant  surveillance,  oc- 
casionally tampering  with  the  bookkeeping,  most  of 
them  managed  to  make  the  office  a  productive  one 
and  to  retire  from  it  rich. 

The  viceroys  were  in  more  or  less  coiistant  con- 
•  troversy  with  the  aristocratic  land  and  mine  owners 
and  with  the  haughty  chiefs  of  the  Catholic  hier- 
archy in  Mexico.  Early  in  the  history  of  that  coun- 
try a  most  pernicious  system  of  peonage  originated. 
When  the  land  was  divided  off  into  grants  by  royal 
decree, — regardless,  of  course,  of  the  rights  of  the 
Indian  owners, — with  each  grant  native  laborers  to  a 
certain  number  were  assigned  to  the  favored  citizen 
— "commended"  (eiKomendados)  to  him  that  he 
might  educate  and  Christianize  them.  As  might 
have  been  guessed,  given  the  hard-hearted  avarice  of 
the  average  Spaniard  of  that  time  and  his  crude  no- 
tion of  the  nature  of  conversion  to  Christianity,  this 
system  almost  at  once  degenerated  into  slavery,  pure 
and  simple.  In  the  same  way  the  laborers  in  the 
mines  virtually  belonged  to  their  employers,  who 
controlled  their  food  supply,  administered  their 
courts  of  law — such  as  they  had — and  represented  to 
them  that  ominous  and  invisible  power  across  the 


Las  Encomiendas.  57 

sea  which  they  hated  but  feared  to  resist.  The  Cath- 
olic Church,  in  this  matter,  as  in  many  others,  set  a 
melancholy  example  which  those  who  accepted  it  as 
monitor  were  glad  enough  to  follow.  Vast  archi- 
tectural piles,  churches,  colleges,  convents,  monaste- 
ries, crowded  each  other  in  every  city — almost  in 
every  village — built  by  the  unrequited  and  forced  la- 
bor of  timorous  converts.  Huge  supplies  of  candles 
and  other  accessories  of  the  religious  ceremonials 
were  constantly  contributed  by  indigent  worshipers, 
only  to  be  resold  in  the  market  and  thus  made  to  en- 
rich the  priests  and  friars. 

The  enslavement  of  the  Indian  mine  laborers  and 
the  melancholy  situation  of  the  encomendados  were 
the  occasion  of  numerous  and  pointed  protests  to  the 
Spanish  crown  on  the  part  of  generous-hearted  eccle- 
siastics, and  even  of  viceroys.  The  whole  system  of 
encomiendas,  so  often  denounced,  was  finally  abol- 
ished by  royal  authority,  an  act  which,  though  it 
prevented  the  further  extension  of  it,  operated  very 
slowly  indeed  to  interfere  with  the  feudal  pride  of 
men  who  controlled  previous  grants  of  docile  slaves. 
Nevertheless,  in  places,  mining  regions  especially, 
where  the  abuse  had  become  particularly  heinous, 
or  where  there  w-as  a  dogged  and  perhaps  eloquent 
prior  or  bishop  who  took  the  Indians'  part,  there 
were  from  time  to  time  outbreaks  of  justice  highly 
creditable  to  the  Spanish  crown  and  to  the  viceroy  of 
the  period.  A  few  of  these  viceroys  were  so  consid- 
erate of  the  native  population,  and  so  resolute  in  pro- 


58  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

moting  their  interests,  that  their  names  are  embalmed 
in  history  with  epithets  fragrant  yet  of  a  people's 
gratitude.  At  the  very  beginning  were  two  of  this 
type,  Don  Antonio  de  Mendoza,  the  first  viceroy,  and 
Don  Luis  de  Velasco,  the  second.  Mendoza  was  so 
careful  of  the  interests  of  the  Indians,  especially  in 
connection  with  a  plague  which  broke  out  during  his 
period,  that  they  called  him  "Father  of  the  Poor." 
Velasco,  who  died  in  1564,  was  universally  mourned 
as  the  "Father  of  the  Country."  It  was  during  his 
term  that  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  issued  express  or- 
ders that  there  should  be  no  more  encomiendas,  and 
that  those  already  granted  should  expire  with  the 
death  of  the  men  to  whom  they  had  been  made — 
that  is,  should  not  be  inherited.  This  order,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  not  immediately  carried  out.  On  a 
certain  occasion,  however,  Velasco  took  advantage  of 
the  royal  attitude  toward  this  subject  to  liberate  one 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  slaves,  mostly  miners, 
with  the  noble  remark  that  "the  freedom  of  the  na- 
tive Indians  was  worth  more  than  all  the  mines  in  the 
world,  and  that  the  royal  share  in  the  income  of  these 
mines  [one-fifth]  was  not  so  important  as  to  justify 
the  breaking  of  all  law,  both  human  and  divine." 


CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Revolution  Begun. 

Three  hundred  years  after  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment had  asserted  its  sway  in  Mexico,  it  was  shak- 
en off  by  that  country.  The  immediate  cause  of  this 
successful  revolution  was  the  Napoleonic  interven- 
tion in  Spain.  How  that  disturbance  served  to  pro- 
mote and  bring  to  a  crisis  the  feebly  stirring  senti- 
ment in  favor  of  liberty  and  independence  in  nearly 
all  of  the  Spanish  American  countries  is  a  story  that 
has  perhaps  never  been  adequately  told.  It  will  be 
sufficient  here  to  give  an  outline  of  it  in  so  far  as  it 
concerns  Mexico.  The  essential  phases  of  the  situ- 
ation are  really  few,  though  both  in  Spain  and  in  her 
American  colonies  the  political  and  social  movements 
of  the  first  two  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century 
seem  infinitely  complex. 

The  success  of  the  political  revolution  in  Mexico 
may  be  explained  by  a  single  statement :  It  became 
])Ossible  when  the  Catholic  Church  was  alienated 
from  the  Spanish  government.  All  other  influences 
making  toward  independence  would  have  come  to 
naught  without  this  final  and  decisive  element.  The 
uprising  under  the  lead  of  Hidalgo  in  1810  failed 
utterly,  though,  as  later  transpired,  events  in  Spain 
so  affected  the  situation  of  Mexico  that  this  abortive 
movement  there  became  in  fact  the  beginning  of  u1- 

(59) 


6o  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

timate  independence.  But  so  great  was  the  wealth 
and  influence  of  the  Cathohc  Church,  so  thoroughly 
had  the  people  of  Mexico  and  other  Latin  American 
countries  been  trained  in  the  habit  of  loyal  submis- 
sion to  that  Church,  that  so  long  as  the  Church  and 
the  government  of  the  mother  country  acted  in  con- 
cert there  was  not  the  slightest  likelihood  that  any 
movement  toward  independence  from  Spain  would 
succeed.  It  is  true  that  the  success  of  the  English 
colonies  in  North  America,  which  had  set  themselves 
up  into  the  independent  United  States,  and  the  far- 
reaching  influence  of  the  sentiments  which  had  cul- 
minated in  the  French  Revolution,  had  agitated  even 
the  submissive  populations  of  Spanish  America. 
These  dim  strivings  of  patriotism  would  doubtless 
have  been  even  more  pronounced  than  they  were 
had  the  indigenous  races  been  allowed  to  attain  to 
that  advanced  and  enlightened  intellectual  condi- 
tion to  which  their  number  and  their  native  intelli- 
gence entitled  them.  For  it  was  among  them  espe- 
cially that  the  love  of  country  was  essentially  linked 
with  the  love  of  liberty,  and  to  them  that  freedom 
and  patriotism  seemed  one  and  the  same  thing. 

But  so  systematically  and  so  successfully  had  the 
ecclesiastical  power  combined  forces  with  the  polit- 
ical and  the  social  that  the  Indians,  after  three  hun- 
dred years  of  so-called  Christian  training,  were  as 
ignorant  and  as  helpless  as  before  the  Spanish  came. 
The  very  language,  which  had  little  by  little  forced 
out  their  native  dialects,  was  full  of  terms  that  point- 


Napoleon  in  Spain.  6i 

ed  out  and  enforced  their  inferiority.  People  of 
Spanish  stock  were  called  gente  de  razon,  "rational 
people,"  whereas  it  was  commonly  accepted  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  that  the  reason  of  a  peon  or  indito  was 
not  sufficient  to  justify  any  effort  to  educate  him. 
Judge  Ignacio  Altamirano,  one  of  the  greatest  liter- 
ary critics  ever  produced  by  Mexico,  used  to  relate 
with  great  glee  that  he  became  gente  de  rason,  though 
of  pure  Indian  blood,  because  his  father  happened  to 
be  appointed  alcalde  of  the  village.  When  that  event 
took  place,  the  village  schoolmaster  decided  that  he 
must  teach  young  Ignacio  his  letters ! 

Events  that  later  led  to  the  complete  independence 
of  Mexico, — and  the  story  is  essentially  the  same  for 
all  the  Spanish  American  colonies, — were  taking 
place  both  in  that  country  and  in  Spain,  during  the 
years  1808  to  1821.  Bearing  in  mind  the  decisive  in- 
fluence of  the  Catholic  Church  party,  which  party, 
so  soon  as  it  was  alienated  from  Spain,  insured  the 
success  of  the  revolutionary  movement,  we  may  un- 
dertake in  a  summary  way  to  run  over  these  move- 
ments. 

In  1808  Napoleon,  following  up  his  dream  of 
world-wide  dominion,  wrested  the  throne  of  Spain 
from  the  weakling  king,  Charles  IV.,  and  his  even 
weaker  son,  Ferdinand  VII.  In  the  effort  to  recon- 
cile the  Spanish  people  to  this  high-handed  measure 
and  to  the  government  he  proposed  to  set  up, — put- 
ting his  brother  Joseph  on  the  stolen  throne, — he 
ciilled    for  a   gathering,   "junta,"  of   Spanish   nota- 


62  A   New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

bles.  The  Spanish  patriots  had  been  growing  in- 
creasingly restive  under  the  miserable  subterfuge  of 
a  government  into  which  their  kingdom  had  degen- 
erated, and  this  junta,  called  by  Napoleon,  became 
the  signal  and  type  for  others.  Thus  came  about 
the  remarkable  movement  known  to  history  as  ''the 
Spanish  juntas."  The  men  composing  these  groups 
presently  asserted  their  right  to  govern  Spain.  The 
juntas  entered  into  treaties  with  England.  They 
declared  war  against  Napoleon.  They  assumed 
control  of  the  colonies.  Mexico  among  the  rest. 
They  demanded  liberal  concessions  from  Ferdinand 
as  a  condition  of  his  restoration  to  the  Spanish 
throne.  They  quoted  from  the  utterances  of  the 
French  revolutionists  high-sounding  principles  con- 
cerning the  rights  of  man.  Most  of  their  members 
were  openly  hostile  to  the  Catholic  Church. 

As  the  nature  and  purposes  of  these  juntas  grad- 
ually percolated  into  the  thought  of  the  colonists, 
great  anxiety  was  awakened,  and  with  it,  among 
the  conservatives  at  least,  great  resentment.  The 
Viceroy  of  Mexico,  Iturrigaray,  announced  the 
change  in  the  home  administration,  July,  1808,  and 
required  the  Mexican  people  to  submit  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  "junta  central"  at  Sevilla,  at  the  same 
time  proclaiming  his  loyalty  to  the  dethroned  house 
of  Bourbon,  and  especially  to  Ferdinand  VII.  He 
seems  to  have  been  under  the  impression  that  the 
junta  was  working  entirely  in  the  interests  of  Ferdi- 
nand as  against  the  French. 


The  Juntas.  63 

It  soon  appeared,  however,  that  the  juntas  had 
many  things  in  view  besides  the  replacing  on  the 
throne  of  the  deported  Bourbons ;  and  when  their  in- 
tentions concerning  reforms,  popular  government, 
and  the  like,  became  known,  the  viceroy  found  him- 
self between  two  fires.  For  the  Ayuntamiento  of 
Mexico,  which  had  never  recognized  any  power  but 
that  of  the  King  of  Spain,  with  whom  it  was  accus- 
tomed to  deal  directly,  flatly  refused  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  juntas.  In  this  the  people,  loyal 
to  the  crown,  supported  the  Ayuntamiento.  Some 
suggested  that  it  would  be  a  good  arrangement  to 
have  Ferdinand  come  to  Mexico,  but  the  confusion 
and  uncertainty  were  so  great  that  a  plan  for  this  did 
not  then  take  shape.  Meantime  the  viceroy,  trying  to 
carry  water  on  both  shoulders,  excited  the  suspicion 
of  the  Audiencia,  made  up  as  it  was  of  ardent  royal- 
ists, and  was  by  them  imprisoned  and  sent  in  chains 
to  Spain.  For  a  time  his  place  was  taken  by  tempo- 
rary substitutes,  but  in  18 10  Venegas,  duly  author- 
ized by  the  Junta  Central,  made  his  appearance  in 
Mexico  and  took  command  of  the  situation.  His  dis- 
agreement with  the  Ayuntamiento,  and  with  the 
large  loyal  element  in  the  population,  of  which  the 
leaders  of  the  Church  were  the  guiding  spirits,  would 
have  reached  an  acute  stage  very  promptly  had  not 
events  of  a  most  stirring  nature  in  the  politics  of 
Mexico  drawn  away  the  attention  of  all  concerned 
from  the  situation  in  Spain.  For  a  time  the  question 
was  not  whether  Mexico  should  be  on  the  side  of 


64  A  ffcw  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

Ferdinand  or  of  the  junta,  but  rather  whether  or 
not  she  should  break  all  connection  with  Spain.  To 
the  events  which  brought  about  this  crisis  we  must 
now  for  a  moment  turn. 

From  the  beginning  the  Spanish  administration  of 
Mexican  affairs  had,  at  least  from  the  Mexican  point 
of  view,  exhibited  grave  defects.  Every  abuse  of 
sovereign  power  of  which  the  colonists  in  Virginia 
and  Massachusetts  complained  was  duplicated  south 
of  the  Rio  Grande.  To  them  were  added  many  oth- 
ers. The  native  population  had,  as  we  have  seen, 
suffered  much  from  various  forms  of  slavery.  One 
peculiarly  exasperating  development  of  this  kind 
has  not  been  mentioned.  Various  individual  Span- 
iards, or  associations  of  "Conquistadores,"  as  they 
rather  insultingly  called  themselves,  obtained  from 
the  Spanish  crown  monopolies  of  sundry  articles  of 
primary  necessity.  By  placing  an  exorbitant  price 
upon  these  products  they  soon  managed  to  have  a 
large  number  of  natives  constantly  in  their  debt. 
The  old  savage  laws  concerning  debtors,  in  vogue 
then  throughout  the  world,  were  even  more  savage 
in  Mexico.  The  creditor  virtually  owned  the  debtor. 
For  a  poor  man,  a  laboring  man,  getting  into  debt 
was  equivalent  to  selling  himself  into  slavery.  And 
industrial  slavery  of  this  kind  is  really  worse  than 
domestic  slavery,  for  if  the  slave  is  a  chattel  his  own- 
er will  take  care  of  him  so  that  his  value  may  not 
diminish.    But  nobody  cares  whether  a  peon  lives  or 


Commercial  Oppression.  65 

dies.  He  cannot  be  sold,  and  his  place,  if  he  dies, 
can  easily  be  filled. 

The  government  also  had  certain  monopolies — 
salt,  tobacco,  and  gunpowder  among  them — besides 
one-fifth  of  the  income  of  all  the  gold  and  silver 
mines,  the  sale  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  offices,  a 
stamp  tax,  and  a  poll  tax  exacted  only  of  the  Indians. 
The  king  also  demanded  a  share  of  the  immense  in- 
come arising  from  religious  rites  for  which  the  peo- 
ple paid  the  priests  vast  sums.  In  addition  to  all 
these  abuses,  the  viceroys  and  their  subordinates  de- 
liberately planned  to  return  to  Spain  rich  after  even 
a  brief  administration,  a  thing  which  nobody  seemed 
to  think  amiss.  Indeed,  the  viceroyalty  was  much 
sought  as  a  means  of  recouping  the  fortunes  of  de- 
cayed aristocracy.  What  financial  burdens  all  this 
imposed  upon  the  productive  population  of  Mexico 
may  be  imagined.  The  people  were  also  forbidden 
to  compete  with  Spain  by  raising  grapes  or  olives, 
or  by  erecting  factories  for  the  production  of  any 
article  important  to  the  manufacturing  interests  of 
the  mother  country.  Moreover,  Mexico  could  nei- 
ther buy  nor  sell  in  any  market  save  that  of  Spain, 
from  whose  ports  all  her  shipments  had  to  come 
and  to  them  all  her  exports  be  sent.  The  disastrous 
effects  on  commerce  of  such  laws  need  not  be  de- 
scribed. 

In  the  summer  of  18 10  a  little  company  of  patriots 
banded  together  in  the  city  of  Queretaro  to  rliscuss 
plans  for  freeing  Mexico  from  Spain.  The  move- 
5 


66  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

ment  seems  to  have  had  no  immediate  connection 
with  the  disturbances  then  taking  place  in  the  Span- 
ish government,  but  to  have  been  a  growth  from 
slowly  accumulating  sentiments  of  patriotism  and 
from  the  stirring  of  the  principles  of  popular  liberty 
then  so  generally  sifting  through  the  thought  of  the 
world.  The  group  was  made  up  of  men  in  the  vari- 
ous walks  of  life, — two  of  them  soldiers,  a  pair  of 
lawyers,  a  physician,  some  merchants,  etc.  They 
were  not  generally  Indians,  or  even  Mestizos.  The 
Creoles — that  is,  Mexican-born  Spaniards — had  been 
so  much  discriminated  against  by  tire  government, 
and  were  so  commonly  looked  down  upon  socially 
by  the  governing  classes  and  the  **old  Spaniards," 
that  they  had  come  to  identify  themselves  almost  en- 
tirely with  the  other  elements  in  the  native  popula- 
tion. They  held  themselves  above  the  Indians,  of 
course,  but  at  the  same  time  felt  themselves  to  be 
Mexicans  and  not  Spaniards,  a  feeling  which  is  very 
pronounced  among  them  at  the  present  time. 

The  Oueretaro  group,  knowing  how  important  it 
was  to  conciliate  the  Church,  and  feeling  the  need  of 
an  intelligent  leader,  made  advances  to  Father  Hidal- 
go, curate  of  the  little  village  of  Dolores,  some  sev- 
enty miles  to  the  north  of  their  city.  Hidalgo  had 
been  educated  at  the  Colegio  de  San  Nicolas,  in  Val- 
ladolid  (now  Morelia),  the  oldest  college  in  Amer- 
ica. He  was  a  progressive  and  philanthropic  man, 
and  had  been  much  annoyed  by  the  interference  of 
the  government  with  his  efforts  to  teach  his  parish- 


MICLI-L   H1D.\1.(.(J   ■^    C(JSII1.I,A. 


The  Conspiracy  of  1810.  67 

ioners  horticulture.  He  found  the  restriction  as  to 
grapes  especially  annoying,  having  already  taught 
his  people  silkworm  and  bee  culture,  besides  estab- 
lishing a  factory  of  earthenware  and  otherwise  ad- 
vancing their  worldly  interests  while  ministering  to 
them  in  spiritual  things. 

Hidalgo  having  convinced  himself  by  a  visit  or 
two  to  Queretaro  that  the  new  movement  gave  prom- 
ise of  a  favorable  development,  at  length  agreed  to  be 
the  leader  of  it,  and  with  the  others  began  systemat- 
ically to  plan  for  an  uprising.     In  the  city  of  San 
Juan  de  los  Lagos,  situated  in  the  same  rich  and  pop- 
ulous state  with  Dolores,  the  state  of  Guanajuato, 
there  is  a  yearly  fiesta  in  the  month  of  December. 
Thinking  to  take  advantage  of  the  throngs  which 
would  be  in  attendance  upon  it  and  could  easily  be 
drawn  into  a  movement  for  independence,  it  was  ar- 
ranged to  spring  the  movement  at  that  place  and 
time.     But  in  September  one  or  two  members  of 
the  band  of  conspirators,   through   motives  which 
history  does  not  disclose,  gave  information  to  the 
government  of  what  was  going  on,  together  with  the 
names  of  all  concerned.    The  local  representative  of 
the  Spanish  government  in  Queretaro,  holding  the 
office  of  corregidor,  was  Don  Miguel  Dominguez. 
Without  actually  having  given  his  name  as  an  adher- 
ent, he  was  aware  of  the  existence  of  the  conspiracy 
•ind  friendly  tr,  it.     TTis  wife,  an  even  more  ardent 
patriot,  also  had  knowledge  of  the  whole  movement. 
l^nt  when  the  conspiracy  was  formally  and  openly 


68  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico, 

denounced  to  him,  Don  Miguel  was  forced  reluc- 
tantly to  take  steps  to  arrest  his  friends.  Locking 
his  wife  in  their  home  for  fear  her  zeal  might  out- 
run her  prudence,  he  set  out  on  September  14,  18 10, 
to  nip  the  revolution  in  the  bud.  Mrs.  Dominguez, 
however,  was  a  woman  for  whom  a  mere  lock  and 
key  signified  little.  She  managed  to  call  to  her  win- 
dow a  reliable  policeman,  himself  inclined  to  the 
revolutionary  cause,  and  sent  him  flying  to  Dolores 
to  warn  Hidalgo. 

The  priest  himself,  however,  had  been  betrayed  by 
a  hired  agent,  a  soldier  of  the  regiment  then  stationed 
at  San  Miguel,  a  neighboring  town,  who  had  given 
information  to  the  commander  there.  Hearing  ru- 
mors of  this,  Hidalgo  had  sent  for  Captain  Allende, 
the  chief  mover  of  the  conspiracy,  who  lived  in  San 
Miguel  (since  named  for  him),  and  the  two  were  at 
Dolores  in  consultation  when  the  news  from  Quere- 
taro  arrived.  Aldama,  the  messenger,  reached  that 
village  a  little  after  midnight  of  September  15,  1810, 
and  found  Allende.  Together  they  went  to  Hidal- 
go's room  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning  of  the 
1 6th,  and  woke  him.  Having  heard  the  definite 
news,  he  arose  to  dress  himself,  saying  coolly :  "Gen- 
tlemen, we  are  in  for  it.  There  is  nothing  for  us  to 
do  but  to  set  out  on  our  hunt  for  gackiipines' — a 
slang  term  for  Spaniards. 

The  priest's  loyal  friends  and  supporters  in  the  vil- 
lage were  hastily  sent  for,  and  in  the  cool  September 
dawn  a  group  of  men.  humble  laborers  and  farmers, 


«•  El  Grito  de  Dolores."  69 

whose  names  Mexican  history  proudly  preserves, 
soon  gathered  about  the  curato.  The  village  prison 
was  forced  and  the  political  prisoners  set  free.  It 
was  Sunday  morning,  and  when  the  parish  belP 
called  to  mass  it  rang  out  a  call  to  liberty  which 
echoes  yet.  For  when  the  people  came  they  learned 
what  was  going  on,  and  the  patriot  priest  lifted  up 
his  ever-memorable  "grito"  of  "Viva  la  Independen- 
cia!"  Thus  dramatically  was  launched  the  move- 
ment which,  though  it  seemed  soon  to  be  blotted  out 
in  blood,  never  stopped  till  Mexico  was  free. 

Of  that  first  outbreak,  so  unformed,  so  prema- 
ture, without  military  organization  or  equipment, 
without  programme,  and  with  a  more  or  less  vision- 
ary ecclesiastic  as  leader,  the  wonder  is  not  that  it 
failed,  but  that  it  came  so  near  to  success.  The  ex- 
planation, aside,  of  course,  from  the  tremendous  mo- 
mentum of  sentiment  in  favor  of  independence,  is  to 
be  found  in  Hidalgo's  shrewd  instinct  by  which  from 
thevery  beginninghe  made  it  the  cause  of  the  Indians 
against  the  foreign  invader.  On  that  first  Sunday, 
marching  with  his  straggling  mob  in  the  direction  of 
San  Miguel,  where  with  Allende's  help  he  hoped  to 
get  hold  of  a  few  soldiers,  as  they  passed  the  little 
village  of  Atotonilco  and  swept  up  the  villagers  who 
had  gathered  to  mass,  the  patriot  spied  in  the  church 
a  banner  bearing  the  image  of  the  Indian  Virgin  of 
Guadalupe.     Snatching  it  down  from  the  wall,  he 

'It  now  hangs  over  the  door  of  the  National  Palace  in  Mexi- 
co City,  and  is  rung  once  a  year  at  midnight  of  Septemhcr  15. 


70  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

waved  it  before  the  excited  multitude  as  their  ensign, 
and  to  the  cry  of  "Long  Hve  the  independence  of 
Mexico !"  he  added  another,  to  them  even  more  in- 
telhgible  and  inspiring,  "Long  Hve  our  Holy  Mother 
of  Guadalupe !"  Thus  the  enterprise  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  which  nearly  three  centuries  before  had  sup- 
plied Mexico  with  a  Virgin  indigenous  to  the  soil, 
contributed  in  an  unexpected  way  to  the  well-being 
of  the  country  by  making  it  possible  to  combine  reli- 
gious enthusiasm  with  patriotic  fervor.  To  the  bat- 
tle cries  suggested  by  Hidalgo  the  people  soon  added 
another  and  ominous  one,  "Mueran  los  gachupines!" 
Death  to  the  Spaniards !  In  San  Miguel  a  whole  reg- 
iment of  soldiers,  the  "Queen's  Own/'  was  added  to 
the  mob  of  peasants,  besides  a  welcome  increase 
of  arms  and  supplies.  The  people  were  armed  with 
scythes,  machetes,  pikes,  slings,  and  even  hoes.  On 
the  1 8th  of  the  same  month  of  September  they  swept 
on  southward  to  Celaya,  which  was  occupied  on 
the  2 1  St  without  resistance,  and  sacked  by  the  mob. 
Here  an  effort  at  organization  was  made,  Hidalgo 
being  appointed  captain  general  and  Allende  lieu- 
tenant general. 

From  Celaya  the  expedition  turned  back  to  the 
northwest  to  invest  the  capital  city  of  Hidalgo's 
state,  Guanajuato,  only  a  short  distance  across  the 
mountains  from  Dolores.  It  was,  as  it  is  still,  a  city 
of  much  wealth,  having  then  a  considerable  garrison 
of  Spanish  soldiers  and  a  sort  of  customhouse  and 
treasury  building  of  great  strength,  but  badlv  situ- 


The  Capture  of  Guanajuato.  7I 

ated  for  defense.  The  commander  of  the  troops, 
having  heard  of  the  revolution,  had  as  early  as  the 
17th  begun  elaborate  preparations  to  defend  the  city, 
calling  on  the  people  to  rally  to  the  help  of  the  gov- 
ernment. This  they  did  at  first,  but  within  the  two 
weeks  which  elapsed  before  the  arrival  of  the  patriot 
army  they  had  learned  more  of  its  objects  and  char- 
acter, and  their  ardor  as  defenders  cooled.  But  the 
Spanish  commander  haughtily  refused  when  called 
upon  to  surrender,  and  on  September  28  was  attacked 
by  the  revolutionists  with  such  fury  that  he  and  his 
people  were  forced  almost  immediately  to  take  refuge 
in  the  alhondiga.  From  the  neighboring  slopes — the 
city  lies  in  a  narrow  mountain  gulch — poured  such  a 
storm  of  stones  hurled  by  slingers  that  defense  of  the 
walls  soon  became  impossible,  the  gate  of  the  for- 
tress was  fired,  and  the  invaders  swept  everything 
before  them.  Riano,  the  Spanish  commander,  fell 
early  in  the  engagement.  During  the  night  the  city 
was  plundered,  but  the  next  day  Hidalgo  published 
general  orders  reestablishing  the  Ayuntamiento,  or 
city  government,  and  repressing  disorder  under  se- 
vere penalties.  Availing  himself  of  the  resources  of 
the  city,  he  began  to  take  serious  measures  for  the 
success  of  his  movement.  He  ordered  the  establish- 
ment of  a  cannon  foundry  and  commenced  to  gather 
arms  and  supplies.  Two  weeks  later  he  set  out  for 
Valladolid  (Morelia). 

Meantime,  as  may  well  be  supposed,  the  vice-regal 
government  was  in  a  ferment.    Venegas,  the  viceroy 


72  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

of  the  juntas,  had  just  arrived.  He  was  an  energetic 
man,  and  at  once  issued  orders  to  General  Calleja, 
in  San  Luis  Potosi,  to  go  after  the  rebels  with  all 
the  troops  at  his  command.  The  government's  army 
in  Mexico  was  at  the  time  made  up  of  about  ten  thou- 
sand regulars  and  some  twenty  thousand  provincial 
militia.  The  viceroy  set  a  price  on  the  heads  of  Hi- 
dalgo and  Allende,  and  the  archbishop  of  Michoacan 
anathematized  his  renegade  priest  publicly  and  by 
name,  the  Inquisition  following  suit.  Hidalgo  re- 
plied in  a  spirited  proclamation,  declaring  himself 
a  loyal  Catholic  still  and  calling  on  the  people  to 
awaken  to  their  rights  as  freemen. 

To  all  appearances  the  people  heeded  him  rather 
than  the  viceroy  and  archbishop.  On  his  way  to 
Morelia  nobody  resisted  him,  and  the  city  itself  fell 
into  his  hands  without  objection.  His  following 
now  numbered  probably  one  hundred  thousand.  He 
took  possession  of  $400,000  which  he  found  in  the 
royal  treasury  at  Valladolid,  persuaded  the  ecclesi- 
astical authorities  to  remove  the  disabilities  of  him- 
self and  his  soldiers,  and  published  a  proclamation 
abolishing  slavery  and  the  poll  tax.  These  measures 
gave  him  immense  popularity  with  the  Indians,  and 
his  army  swept  on  unopposed  toward  Mexico. 

On  the  high  ridge  between  that  city  and  Toluca, 
the  rim  of  the  valley  of  Mexico,  he  met  the  royalist 
troops  sent  out  to  oppose  him.  While  trying  to  ar- 
range with  them  for  a  parley  the  battle  broke  out, 
and  the  viceroy's  troops  were  soon  disastrously  de- 


Hidalgo's  Disastrous  Retreat.  73 

feated.  There  was  nothing  to  hinder  the  advance 
of  the  revolutionists  upon  the  capital,  but  for  some 
reason  Hidalgo  hesitated  a  day  or  two  and  then 
withdrew  northward.  His  action  has  never  been 
fully  explained.  It  must  have  been  due  in  some 
measure,  at  least,  to  the  timorous  shrinking  from 
bloodshed  of  a  man  unused  to  war.  This  battle  was 
his  first,  and,  though  won  by  his  troops,  seems  to 
have  filled  him  with  dismay. 

Near  Celaya  he  encountered  Calleja,  hastening  to 
the  relief  of  Mexico,  who  promptly  attacked  and 
routed  the  insurgents.  Hidalgo  went  to  Morelia 
and  Allende  to  Guanajuato.  Calleja  followed  Al- 
lende  and,  defeating  him  again,  captured  that  city. 
Hidalgo  soon  passed  on  to  Guadalajara,  w^here  he 
was  made  welcome.  The  revolutionary  movement 
had  spread  through  the  whole  country.  There  he 
undertook  the  organization  of  a  civil  government, 
appointed  ministers,  and  sent  messengers  to  the 
United  States.  But  the  royalist  troops,  concentra- 
ted under  Calleja,  were  again  approaching.  The  fol- 
lowing of  Hidalgo  and  of  Allende,  who  had  again 
joined  him,  was  not  much  more  than  a  mob.  They 
went  out  to  meet  their  enemy  and  again  met  defeat. 
The  leaders  made  their  way  out  to  Aguas  Calientes, 
thence  northward  to  Zacatecas,  and  on  to  Saltillo, 
from  which  place  they  set  out  for  Monclova.  Hidal- 
go had  been  persuaded  to  give  the  supreme  military 
command  to  Allende, — n  tliini:;-  he  ought  to  have 
done  at  the  beginning, — and  they  were  again  finding 


74  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

sympathizers  in  all  quarters.  It  was  only  a  question 
of  obtaining  supplies  and  arms,  and  they  could  soon 
gather  another  army.  But  on  the  way  to  Monclova 
they  were  betrayed  by  a  young  lieutenant,  disaffect- 
ed because  Allende  had  refused  to  advance  him  in 
rank,  and  taken  as  prisoners  of  the  royalist  troops 
to  Chihuahua.  There  the  local  Spanish  commander 
promptly  condemned  them  by  court  martial,  and  they 
were  executed,  about  midsummer  of  1811.  Their 
heads  were  carried  to  Guanajuato  and  exposed  on  the 
famous  alhondiga,  where  they  remained  for  ten 
years.  The  first  chapter  of  Mexico's  revolution  thus 
came  to  an  end. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Revolution  Consummated. 

How  much  more  wisely  Hidalgo  was  building 
than  he  knew  appeared  after  his  capture.  In  the  four 
months  that  intervened  between  that  capture  and 
his  execution  another  revolutionary  army  had  been 
formed,  and  two  or  three  important  victories  won 
by  it.  When  Hidalgo  set  out  on  his  fatal  trip  from 
Saltillo  to  Monclova  he  left  in  command  at  Saltillo 
Don  Ignacio  Lopez  Rayon,  who,  when  he  heard  of 
the  disaster  to  his  chief,  almost  immediately  started 
to  make  his  way  back  toward  the  central  part  of  the 
country.  His  troops  numbered  between  three  and 
four  thousand,  and  on  their  way  south  they  met  and 
defeated  several  detachments  of  the  royalist  army, 
capturing  a  good  many  field  guns  and  a  quantity  of 
supplies.  The  rich  and  important  city  of  Zacatecas 
received  the  patriot  army  with  open  arms,  an  event 
which  awoke  the  representatives  of  the  Spanish  gov- 
ernment to  the  fact  that  the  revolutionary  ideas  had 
much  more  vitality  than  they  had  suspected.  Indeed, 
this  is  the  most  noteworthy  phenomenon  of  the  trou- 
bled and  uncertain  years  which  followed  Hidalgo's 
death.  In  the  hearts  of  the  common  people  the  sen- 
timent of  liberty  burned  like  a  quenchless  flame.  No 
sooner  were  the  patriot  armies  defeated  and  scattered 

(75) 


76  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

than  new  recruits  filled  the  depleted  ranks  as  if  rising 
from  the  ground. 

Rayon,  threatened  at  Zacatecas  by  Calleja,  sped 
away  again  to  the  south,  fighting  by  the  way  and 
usually  defeated, — at  "el  Maguey,"  "la  Tinaja," 
and  Valladolid,  which  city  he  failed  to  capture.  Pen- 
etrating still  further  into  the  mountains  of  Michoa- 
can,  he  took  possession  of  Zitacuaro,  and  there,  on 
August  19, 181 1, called  a  "junta"  of  four  men — him- 
self, Liceaga,  Verduzco,  and  Yarza — which  issued 
a  proclamation  and  became  a  nucleus  for  the  con- 
gress of  Chilpancingo  two  years  later. 

This  reappearance  of  a  governing  center  for  the 
revolution  was  joyously  welcomed  by  the  warrior 
priest  Don  Jose  Maria  Morelos,  whose  daring  and 
breathless  activity  had  for  nearly  a  year  been  carry- 
ing terror  to  the  Spanish  forces  all  through  the  south. 
A  little  dark-faced  Indian,  who  had  obtained  his  the- 
ological training  after  years  of  manual  labor  and 
poverty,  partly  under  Hidalgo  while  the  great  pa- 
triot was  rector  of  the  Colegio  de  San  Nicolas,  Mo- 
relos, when  his  old  teacher  came  back  to  Valladolid 
at  the  head  of  an  army,  was  curate  of  a  near-by  vil- 
lage. When  he  hastened  to  join  the  revolutionary 
movement,  which  exactly  suited  his  tastes,  Hidalgo, 
instead  of  taking  him  along  on  his  march  toward  the 
capital,  sent  him  flying  southward  with  orders  to 
gather  troops  and,  if  posisble,  take  possession  of 
Acapulco,  a  port  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Sallying  forth 
alone  and  without  resources,  the  martial  priest  so 


Persistence  of  the  Revolution.  77 

successfully  carried  out  the  orders  of  his  superior  as 
to  enroll  his  name  among  the  really  great  military 
leaders  of  the  world.  His  exploits,  if  detailed,  would 
make  a  romance  as  thrilling  as  any  ever  born  in  the 
imagination  of  genius.  Without  actually  capturing 
Acapulco  he  kept  it  in  a  more  or  less  constant  state 
of  siege,  while  at  the  same  time  systematically  ter- 
rorizing the  whole  region  south  of  Morelia  to  the 
coast. 

Morelos,  having  united  his  counsels  with  those  of 
the  junta,  left  Rayon  secure,  as  he  thought,  in  Zit- 
acuaro,  a  place  of  great  natural  strength,  to  await 
the  attack  of  the  royalist  army  under  Calleja,  while 
he,  dividing  his  own  forces,  made  vigorous  dem- 
onstrations against  Acapulco,  Toluca,  and  Oaxaca, 
and  even  threatened  Mexico  City  itself.  But  Calleja, 
whose  savage  conduct  after  his  capture  of  Guana- 
juato had  earned  for  him  the  title  of  "the  Cruel," 
easily  routed  Rayon,  captured  and  devastated  Zit- 
acuaro,  and  once  more  dissipated  the  rallying  center 
of  the  Independents. 

But  the  fire  of  revolution,  instead  of  being  stamped 
out,  was  only  scattered.  It  continued  to  burst  into 
flames  on  every  hand.  For  two  years  the  warfare 
was  scattering  and  guerilla-like,  but  often  heroic. 
The  siege  of  Cuautla,  where  Morelos  resisted  the 
whole  vice-regal  army  for  seventy  days  and  then 
withdrew  with  all  his  troops,  was  an  exploit  worthy 
of  any  general  and  time.  Not  less  so  was  the  con- 
duct, on  a  critical  occasion,  of  one  of  his  subordi- 


78  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

nates,  Don  Nicolas  Bravo.  The  government  having 
captured  the  father  of  this  officer,  Don  Leonardo 
Bravo,  a  brave  and  active  patriot,  Morelos  offered  in 
exchange  for  him  eight  hundred  Spanish  prisoners. 
The  offer  was  refused.  The  prisoner  was  given 
choice  between  death  and  allegiance  to  Spain. 
Proudly  refusing  to  take  the  oath,  he  was  murdered 
by  means  of  the  degrading  garrote.  Whereupon 
Morelos,  who  was  of  iron  temper,  ordered  Don  Nico- 
las, son  of  the  murdered  man,  to  execute  threq  hun- 
dred Spanish  prisoners  in  reprisal.  The  prisoners 
were  paraded  and  the  order  of  the  commanding  gen- 
eral read  to  them  in  the  presence  of  the  insurgent 
troops.  "Now,"  said  Bravo,  'T  do  not  choose,  even 
when  ordered  to  do  so,  to  imitate  the  wretched  ex- 
ample of  my  enemies.  I  prefer  a  different  kind  of 
vengeance.  I  not  only  spare  your  lives,  but  you  are 
free.  Go."  This  "insurgent  vengeance,"  as  it  was 
called,  produced  a  profound  impression. 

Two  years  after  the  Zitacuaro  junta,  Morelos,  who 
had  but  lately  captured  both  Oaxaca  and  Acapulco, 
secured  the  assembling  in  Chilpancingo  (now  the 
capital  of  the  state  of  Guerrero)  of  a  still  more  rep- 
resentative congress  or  council.  This  was  in  Sep- 
tember, 1813.  The  congress  consisted  of  forty  dele- 
gates, elected  wherever  the  insurgents  were  in  con- 
trol, and  appointed  by  Morelos  from  other  sections. 
It  included  the  members  of  the  previous  junta,  and 
besides  them,  Jose  Maria  Cos,  Carlos  Maria  Busta- 
mante,  Jose  Maria  Murguia,  Jose  Manuel  de  Her- 


Congress  of  Chilpancingo.  79 

rera,  and  other  famous  patriots.  As  an  example  of 
the  respect  he  wished  paid  to  the  body,  Morelos 
promptly  surrendered  to  it  his  military  command, 
only  to  be  at  once  elected  by  the  congress  captain 
general  of  all  the  insurgent  forces.  After  something 
like  a  month  of  deliberation,  the  congress  issued  a 
manifesto  consisting  in  part  of  a  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence for  Mexico  and  in  part  of  a  defense  of  the 
insurgent  cause  in  the  war  then  in  progress.  Among 
the  curious  and  contradictory  features  of  this  docu- 
ment, which  is  chiefly  interesting  as  an  example  of 
how  liberal  ideas  grow,  are  its  declaration  that  the 
war  which  the  opponents  of  the  Spanish  government 
were  then  w-aging,  was  in  favor  of  Ferdinand  VII., 
to  whom  they  affirmed  their  loyalty,  and  its  assertion 
that  the  insurgents  were  the  true  supporters  of  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church,  and  that  if  successful  they 
would  not  admit  into  Mexico  or  tolerate  there  any 
other  form  of  worship.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  in 
those  years  the  Spanish  government  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  Cortes,  a  liberal  body  instituted  by  the  juntas, 
which  had  made  sweeping  reforms  in  the  matter  of 
religious  toleration,  abolished  the  Inquisition,  and 
otherwise  reversed  the  traditional  policies  of  the 
Spanish  monarchy.  Several  members  of  this  first 
Mexican  congress,  and  a  number  of  the  chief  mili- 
tary leaders  up  to  that  time,  were  priests.  These 
facts  will  in  part  explain  the  statement  made  earlier 
that  the  real  secret  of  the  success  of  the  Mexican 


8o  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

revolution  was  in  the  ultimate  identification  with 
it  of  a  strong  Catholic  sentiment. 

But  that  which  was  even  dearer  to  the  Indians  who 
composed  the  insurgent  armies  than  their  devotion 
to  the  mother  Church  was  the  dream  of  freedom. 
The  Chilpancingo  congress  spoke  out  boldly  con- 
cerning the  right  of  Mexico  to  independence.  Its 
members  appealed  in  defense  of  their  contention  to 
the  very  recent  uprising  in  Spain  against  the  French 
intervention.  Little  by  little,  by  the  slow  processes 
native  to  the  manner  of  life  of  that  day — all  the  slow- 
er among  a  people  of  contented  temper  and  slight  en- 
lightenment— the  sentiment  of  freedom  was  making 
its  way. 

Venegas  had  been  substituted  in  the  viceroyalty  by 
Calleja,  who  represented  to  the  common  people  the 
very  essence  of  scorn  and  cruelty.  They  might  not 
understand  the  intricate  politics  of  Europe,  where 
just  then  Napoleon's  power  was  tottering  to  its  fall; 
they  certainly  could  not  make  out  why  good  priests 
like  Cos  and  Morelos  were  fighting  for  the  Guadalu- 
pan  Virgin,  while  the  archbishop  and  the  Inquisition 
in  Mexico  were  launching  anathemas  against  all  who 
opposed  the  viceroy,  but  they  could  understand  the 
thought  of  freeing  themselves  from  the  exactions 
and  cruelties  of  men  like  Calleja.  And  this  was  to 
them  a  very  sweet  thought.  Thus  it  came  about  that 
as  fast  as  the  insurrection  was  put  down  it  broke  out 
again.  And  even  though  its  leaders  sincerely  wished 
to  keep  the  movement  loyal  to  the  Catholic  monarchy 


Death  of  Morelos.  8i 

of  Spain,  they  had  nevertheless  set  in  motion  forces 
which  they  could  no  longer  control. 

But  Calleja,  an  able  military  leader,  and  now 
armed  with  all  the  prestige  and  resources  of  his  po- 
sition, pressed  the  insurgents  hard.  Opportunely 
came  the  news  that  Napoleon  had  replaced  Ferdi- 
nand on  the  throne  of  Spain,  who  in  turn  had  rees- 
tablished the  Inquisition,  made  tatters  of  the  con- 
stitution devised  by  the  Cortes,  and  inaugurated  a 
truly  Spanish  regime.  This  was  after  Calleja's  own 
heart.  Overlooking  completely,  therefore,  the  loy- 
alty of  the  insurgents  to  the  puppet  king  while  he 
had  been  fawning  about  the  feet  of  Napoleon,  he 
availed  himself  of  the  king's  abrogation  of  all  con- 
stitutional guarantees  and  began  to  make  cruel  hav- 
oc of  such  rebels  as  fell  into  his  hands.  One  of  these, 
erelong,  was  Morelos,  who,  anxious  to  preserve  the 
congress,  which  had  meantime  become  a  vacuous  and 
useless  company  of  figureheads,  exposed  himself  to 
capture  on  a  certain  critical  occasion  in  order  that 
its  members  might  escape.  He  was  loaded  with 
chains,  carried  to  Mexico,  condemned  by  the  Inqui- 
sition, w^hich  Calleja  had  put  again  into  operation, 
and,  for  fear  of  the  effect  on  the  people,  secretly  ex- 
ecuted in  a  village  just  outside  the  city,  December 
22,  1815.  This  was  probably  the  last  auto-da-fe  of 
the  Inquisition,  that  baleful  institution  having  for- 
ever disappeared  within  a  short  time  thereafter. 

The  insurgents  were  still  numerous  but  scattered. 
An  ambitious  general,  Mier  y  Teran,  dissolved  the 
6 


82  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

congress,  and  thus  broke  up  the  last  nucleus  of  an 
administrative  center.  In  1816  Calleja  gave  place 
as  viceroy  to  Don  Ruiz  de  Apodaca,  a  reasonable 
and  conciliatory  man.  Nothing  in  the  succeeding 
year  availed  to  draw  together  the  disintegrated 
forces  of  the  revolution,  and  the  kindliness  of  Apo- 
daca, and  especially  his  disposition  to  favor  the  Cre- 
oles and  Mestizos,  brought  many  of  the  disaffected 
to  take  again  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Spain. 

A  romantic  episode  of  the  otherwise  quiet  year  of 
1 8 17  was  the  meteoric  campaign  of  Don  Francisco 
Javier  Mina,  a  brilliant  and  bold  young  Spanish  lib- 
eral of  noble  family,  who,  disgusted  by  the  march 
of  events  in  Spain,  landed  on  the  northeast  coast  of 
Mexico  with  a  few  companions,  quite  a  number  of 
them  Americans,  captured  three  hundred  horses,  and 
set  out  on  a  campaign  in  aid  of  the  revolution  so  suc- 
cessful as  to  be  fairly  incredible.  Reckless,  watch- 
ful, fearless,  indefatigable,  he  eluded  or  defeated 
every  expedition  sent  in  pursuit  of  him,  and  for  half 
a  year  flashed  like  a  meteor  from  mountain  range  to 
mountain  range,  from  city  to  city,  through  all  the 
central  part  of  Mexico.  Captured  at  last  and  shot, 
he  left  a  name  and  a  story  which  warm  the  heart 
and  brighten  the  page  of  Mexico's  historians  to  this 
day. 

For  three  years  the  flames  of  revolution  only 
smoldered.  Then  again  from  Spain  came  a  blast  at 
which  they  burst  once  more  into  a  far-flashing  blaze. 
Ferdinand's    foolish    and    childish    absolutism    had 


The  Last  Straw.  83 

proved  too  much  for  even  patient  Spain.  Napoleon, 
his  protector,  had  gone  into  ecHpse.  The  people 
rose  up  and  thrust  the  constitution  of  18 12  into  his 
ver}'-  face.  The  Cortes  assembled,  and  he  made  be- 
fore it  a  pusillanimous  and  hypocritical  address, 
agreeing  to  all  that  the  liberals  demanded  and  pro- 
fessing sentiments  he  by  no  means  felt.  If  Spain 
seethed  with  these  movements,  ]\Iexico  was  worse. 
The  last  prop  was  at  last  knocked  from  beneath  the 
loyalty  of  the  aristocratic  Church  party.  They  were 
willing  to  support  a  Catholic  government,  but  this 
new  Spanish  constitution,  with  an  angry  people  be- 
hind it,  struck  at  the  dearest  "rights"  of  the  Church 
and  its  priests.  At  last  the  leaders  of  the  Church 
party  in  Mexico  were  ready  to  join  hands  with  the 
common  people  and  cut  loose  from  Spain.  They 
still  clung  to  their  pet,  Ferdinand,  and  part  of  the 
new  plan  was  to  have  him  leave  Spain,  where  he  was 
so  much  abused,  and  come  to  set  up  a  truly  Catholic 
monarchy  in  Mexico. 

A  tool  was  ready  to  their  hand  in  Don  Augustin 
Iturbide.  An  ardent  Catholic  and  a  soldier  of  con- 
siderable military  experience,  they  managed  to  have 
him  put  in  command  of  the  next  expedition  against 
the  insurgents.  Don  Vicente  Guerrero,  one  of  the 
undaunted  patriots  who  had  kept  the  field  throughout 
all  these  years,  gradually  increasing  his  band  of 
hardy  troops,  had  made  such  rapid  progress  during 
1820  that  in  the  latter  part  of  that  year  he  was  even 
venturing  to  threaten  the  capital.    Iturbide  was  sent 


84  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

against  him  with  the  flower  of  the  royahst  army; 
but  instead  of  fighting,  he  opened  negotiations,  and 
disclosed  to  the  insurgent  leader  a  "plan"  which  he 
and  the  aristocratic  leaders  in  Mexico  had  concocted. 
It  proposed  the  union  of  all  the  forces  then  favoring 
independence  from  Spain  for  the  promotion  of  that 
cause  and  the  protection  especially  of  religion.  "Un- 
ion, independence,  religion"  were  to  be  guaranteed, 
symbolized  by  the  green,  white,  and  red  flag  which 
had  just  been  devised,  and  which  still  flies  as  Mexi- 
co's banner.  Iturbide  declared  that  the  majority  of 
the  troops  under  him  were  ready  to  accept  the  plan 
and  to  fight  if  necessary  for  these  "tres  garantias." 
The  offer  was  joyously  welcomed  by  the  revolution- 
ists. Guerrero  yielded  the  supreme  command  to 
Iturbide,  the  troops  of  the  opposing  armies  and  their 
leaders  held  a  love  feast,  and  the  news  went  flying 
among  scattered  and  despairing  patriots  from  the 
Gulf  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  viceroy  cajoled, 
bribed,  threatened,  wheedled,  but  could  do  nothing, 
and  in  disgust  resigned  and  went  home  to  Spain. 
He  was  succeeded  July  30,  1821,  by  Don  Juan 
O'Donoju,  sixty-fourth  and  last  Spanish  viceroy, 
who  died  within  a  few  months,  having  virtually 
agreed  to  the  proposals  of  the  united  revolutionists, 
and  having  never  attained  in  Mexico  to  other  than  a 
nominal  authority. 

So  acute  was  the  quarrel  in  Spain  during  those 
years,  between  king  and  people,  and  so  debilitated 
the  mother  country  with  her  internal  disturbances, 


Independence  at  Last.  85 

that  not  much  could  be  done  by  her  to  break  the 
strength  which  now  came  to  the  cause  of  Mexican 
independence  through  the  coahtion  between  the  Old 
CathoHc  and  the  Insurgent  parties.  So  soon  as  the 
Spanish  Cortes  heard  of  O'Donoju's  acquiescence  in 
the  revolutionary  ''plan,"  they  repudiated  it  and  de- 
nounced him  as  a  traitor.  But  this  served  no  pur- 
pose further  than  to  register  their  protest.  They 
had  neither  the  men  nor  the  money  to  enforce  Spain's 
claims. 

Thus  at  the  last,  after  so  much  of  travail,  almost 
without  effort  and  absolutely  without  bloodshed, 
Mexico  became  independent.  But  fifteen  years  were 
yet  to  lapse  before  Spain,  reluctant  still,  acknowl- 
edged that  independence  and  forgave  her  wayward 
daughter. 


CHx\PTER  IX. 

Evolution  of  the  Republic. 

The  fifty  years  that  followed  Mexico's  final  rup- 
ture with  Spain  witnessed  two  abortive  attempts 
to  establish  in  New  Spain  the  monarchical  form  of 
government.  Both  failed  for  the  same  reason :  they 
were  crushed  by  the  weight  of  the  sentiment  in  favor 
of  popular  government.  The  "Plan  of  the  Three 
Guarantees,"  usually  spoken  of  as  the  "Plan  de  Igu- 
ala,"  from  the  name  of  the  village  where  it  was  first 
publicly  announced,  provided  for  the  calling  of  a 
constituent  congress  which  was  to  devise  a  monarch- 
ical form  of  government  over  which  a  prince  of  the 
house  of  Bourbon  should  be  invited  to  reign.  Fer- 
dinand VII.,  however,  to  whom  this  offer  prima- 
rily referred,  did  not  care  to  make  the  venture;  and 
besides,  the  Cortes  had  somewhat  to  say  concerning 
the  necessity  of  his  remaining  in  Spain.  No  other 
Bourbon  prince  seems  to  have  been  available.  The 
congress,  of  about  one  hundred  members,  met  in 
February,  1822.  The  Spanish  element  supplied  one 
of  the  three  parties  of  which  it  was  composed,  but 
this  party  were  much  set  back  by  the  news  of  Spain's 
rude  repudiation  of  the  whole  movement.  A  sort  of 
pro  tempore  government  had  been  set  up  in  which 
Iturbide  and  others  acted  with  O'Donoju,  the  de- 
posed viceroy,  up  to  the  time  of  his  death.  The  two 
(86) 


♦♦Emperor"  Iturbide.  87 

other  parties  were,  first,  the  adherents  of  Iturbide, 
who  had  already  conceived  the  idea  of  substituting 
him  for  the  proposed  Bourbon  prince,  and  who  called 
themselves  "Iturbidistas" ;  and,  secondly,  the  Repub- 
licans, who  openly  favored  a  popular  government. 

Three  months  after  this  rather  nondescript  body 
began  its  deliberations,  in  May,  1822,  the  soldiers 
stationed  in  the  city — whether  at  his  instigation  or 
not,  is  not  known — "proclaimed"  Iturbide  emperor, 
and  fairly  stampeded  the  city.  The  congress  found 
itself  bullied  out  of  countenance  by  popular  clamor, 
and  by  a  vote  of  seventy-seven  to  fifteen  agreed  to 
the  demand  of  the  soldiers  and  made  the  young  Mez- 
tizo  colonel  "emperor."  In  March  of  the  next  year 
he  abdicated  the  throne,  and  was  forced  to  leave  the 
country.  The  story  of  his  "empire"  is  amusing  and 
pathetic  rather  than  tragic.  He  was  an  amiable  and 
vain  young  man,  really  devoted  to  his  country,  but 
not  of  the  stuff  emperors  are  made  of.  Besides,  the 
I)eople  were  in  no  mood  to  trifle  with  the  toys  and 
gilded  shows  of  a  puppet  royalty.  They  had  serious 
business  on  hand  and  were  serious  men.  The  patriot 
Indian  element  and  the  wealthy  and  privileged  class- 
es, hereditary  foes  at  best,  were  already  closing  with 
each  other  in  that  death  grip  of  a  struggle,  concern- 
ing the  kind  of  a  government  the  country  was  to 
have,  which  did  not  cease  for  fifty  years.  The  con- 
gress had  succeeded  in  placing  a  loan  or  two  at  most 
disadvantageous  rates,  one  in  England  and  one  in 
France,  destined  later  in  the  century  to  become  the 


88  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

storm  center  of  foreign  intervention.  This  money 
was,  however,  rapidly  dissipated.  After  the  abdica- 
tion of  the  emperor,  the  supreme  power  was  placed 
temporarily  in  the  hands  of  a  governing  board  of 
three.  Congress  banished  and  pensioned  Iturbide, 
and  adjourned. 

In  November,  1823,  another  congress  was  sum- 
moned, and  the  work  of  formulating  a  constitution 
seriously  undertaken.  About  the  same  time  Presi- 
dent Monroe  announced  his  famous  doctrine  warn- 
ing European  governments  that  they  were  not  to  in- 
terfere in  American  affairs.  This  no  doubt  contrib- 
uted not  a  little  to  the  cause  of  Mexican  independ- 
ence, since  Spain,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Holy  Al- 
liance, was  at  the  time  seriously  considering  the  re- 
conquest  of  her  American  colonies.  This  congress 
was  divided  into  the  "Federalist"  and  the  "Central- 
ist" parties,  names  which  of  themselves  do  not  signi- 
fy a  great  deal,  since  the  Centralists  corresponded 
to  the  Federalists  in  the  early  history  of  our  own 
country,  and  the  Federalists  were  Republicans.  It 
was  the  old  cleavage  between  the  native  and  the 
Spaniard,  the  poor  and  the  rich,  the  progressive  and 
the  conservative.  It  has  not  disappeared  from  Mex- 
ico to  this  day. 

All  winter  they  debated  the  constitution,  the  Re- 
publicans holding  up  the  example  of  the  United 
States  as  an  ideal,  and  their  opponents  showing  only 
too  truly  the  many  and  grave  differences  between  the 
situation  in  Mexico  and  that  in  the  American  colo- 


The  Constitution  of  1824.  89 

nies  forty  years  before.  In  January  a  tentative  basis, 
consisting  of  twenty-six  articles,  was  adopted,  and 
by  October  of  the  same  year,  1824,  the  constitution 
itself  was  framed,  adopted,  and  proclaimed.  The 
Federalists  had  triumphed  at  most  points,  and  the 
document  was  modeled  in  large  measure  upon  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  provisional 
agreement  had  declared  that  the  government  was  to 
be  "popular,  representative,  federal,  and  republican." 
But  the  Centralist  party  was  able,  backed  by  the  in- 
ertia of  a  situation  in  which  nobody  really  knew 
what  to  do,  to  force  the  insertion  of  two  provisions 
which  were  to  be  fruitful  of  mischief.  One  declared 
the  Catholic  religion  to  be  official,  and  that  no  other 
would  be  tolerated ;  the  other  perpetuated  the  reli- 
gious and  military  fueros.  This  word  describes  an 
inheritance  from  the  dark  days  of  the  Middle  Ages 
when  warrior  and  priest  were  masters  of  the  world. 
The  fncros  were  the  vested  right  of  soldiers  and 
churchmen  to  be  tried  by  courts  instituted  by  their 
own  orders  instead  of  by  the  law  of  the  land.  It  was 
a  much-coveted  distinction,  to  which  both  orders 
clung  long  and  desperately,  though  its  inconsistency 
with  popular  government  does  not  need  to  be  pointed 
out.  The  constitution  of  1824,  though  virtually  nev- 
er in  full  force,  served  nevertheless,  twenty-three 
years  later,  as  an  excellent  basis  for  that  of  1857. 

The  newly  constituted  republic  consisted  of  nine- 
teen states  and  five  territories.  The  constitution  pro- 
vided that  the  president  should  be  elected  by  the  vote 


go  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

of  the  state  legislatures  and  for  a  term  of  four  years. 
Don  Felix  Fernandez,  who  had  recently  adopted 
the  rather  boastful  name  of  Guadalupe  Victoria,  de- 
scribing his  devotion  to  the  Virgin  and  his  prowess 
in  war,  was  the  candidate  of  the  Federalists,  against 
Don  Nicolas  Bravo,  put  forward  by  the  Centralists. 
Victoria  was  elected  and  Bravo  became  vice  presi- 
dent. Thus  at  last  Mexico  was  free,  with  a  duly 
constituted  civil  government.  The  conflict  between 
the  opposing  parties  went  on.  Private  ambitions 
and  jealousies  among  the  leaders  resulted  in  great 
bitterness  of  feeling,  and  the  recently  introduced  or- 
der of  Masonry  added  fuel  to  the  flames.  The  first 
lodges  formed  were  of  the  Scottish  Rite,  brought 
from  France,  and  were  identified  with  the  wealthy 
Spaniards  and  the  Church  party.  Presently,  how- 
ever, an  accredited  minister  of  the  United  States 
brought  authority  to  establish  a  York  Rite  jurisdic- 
tion, which  he  did  in  connection  with  the  strict  Re- 
publican or  patriot  party.  When  secret,  oath-bound 
societies  meddle  in  politics,  disaster  usually  results. 
"Escoceses"  and  "Yorkinos"  long  survived  in  Mex- 
ico as  rallying  cries,  the  symbols  of  much  bitter  feel- 
ing. 

Victoria  was  the  only  president  who  served  out  a 
constitutional  term  under  the  instrument  of  1824, 
and  his  wound  up  in  a  bloody  wrangle.  Nicolas  Bra- 
vo, Vicente  Guerrero,  Guadalupe  Victoria,  Anto- 
nio Lopez  de  Santa  Anna — names  all  of  them  made 
notable  by  the  part  their  bearers  had  taken  in  freeing 


"War  with  the  United  States.  91 

the  coun^^ry  from  Spain — together  with  other  able 
and  ambitious  miHtary  leaders,  now  began  that  pet- 
ty struggle  among  themselves  which  was  to  keep  the 
country  in  a  turmoil  for  nearly  fifty  years.  It  is  an 
intricate  and  tedious  story,  and  depressing  \yithal. 
The  most  prominent  figure  in  it  for  many  years  was 
Santa  Anna,  a  man  of  considerable  military  ability, 
but  so  despotic  in  his  temper  as  to  be  absolutely  un- 
fit for  any  position  of  civil  authority.  His  only  con- 
ception of  a  government  for  his  country  was  a  dic- 
tatorship, with  himself  as  dictator.  Once  or  twice 
even  when  he  had  tired  of  governing — for  which,  in- 
deed, he  had  no  real  taste — and  retired  to  the  privacy 
of  his  country  estates,  he  seemed  to  think  it  perfectly 
proper  any  day  the  whim  seized  him  to  assume  again 
the  reins  of  absolute  power. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  virtual  anarchy  that 
the  unfortunate  but  unavoidable  war  with  the  United 
States  occurred.  The  citizens  of  the  Mexican  state 
of  Texas,  who  were  largely  Anglo-Saxons,  weary  of 
the  irregular  and  unsatisfactory  mode  of  govern- 
ment, and  desiring  closer  affiliation  with  their  rela- 
tives in  the  United  States,  asserted  their  independ- 
ence in  a  glorious  war  for  liljerty.  By  the  time  they 
were  ready  to  apply  for  admission  into  the  Union, 
Mexico,  realizing  what  she  had  lost,  made  a  fierce 
effort  to  stop  the  movement,  only  to  lose  before  the 
war  was  over  far  more  of  territory  than  that  origi- 
nally involved. 

Ten  years  after  the  war  with  the  United  States, 


92  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

the  patriot  party  at  last  began  to  take  those  decisive 
steps  so  long  needed.  Partly  impelled  by  the  poverty 
of  the  government  anapartly  because  of  dear-bought 
insight  into  the  real  cause  of  the  persisting  vitality 
of  the  reactionary  party  as  against  free  and  represent- 
ative government,  Gomez  Farias,  Miguel  Lerdo  de 
Tejada,  Benito  Juarez,  Melchor  Ocampo,  Guillermo 
Prieto,  and  their  immortal  companions  in  the  final 
desperate  struggle  for  liberty,  laid  hands  on  the  treas- 
ures and  vested  rights  of  the  Church.  In  1855,  while 
Juarez  was  for  a  time  in  the  cabinet  of  President 
Alvarez,  as  Minister  of  Justice,  he  formulated  the 
first  of  the  "reform  laws"  annulling  \h^  fuei'os  and 
declaring  all  citizens  equal  before  the  law.  A  year 
later  followed  the  fiscal  decree  of  Miguel  Lerdo  de 
Tejada,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  nationalizing  all 
mortmain  property — that  is,  property  acquired  by 
people  then  dead  in  such  a  way  that  it  could  never 
be  alienated.  Most  of  it  was  held  by  the  several  re- 
ligious orders.  The  Jesuits  and  Franciscans  resisted, 
and  were  promptly  expelle4  from  the  country  and 
their  vast  properties  seized,  j  These  things,  of  course, 
consolidated  the  Church  party  against  this  new 
movement  toward  republican  government. 

Suspecting  that  their  constitution  was  radically 
defective,  and  seeing  that  it  had  long  been  disregard- 
ed, the  patriot  party  decided  to  formulate  a  new  one. 
This  was  done  in  the  autumn  of  1856,  and  it  was 
adopted  February  5,  1857.  It  embodied  the  princi- 
ples as  to  the  rights  of  man  promulgated  by  the 


The  Republic  at  Last.  93 

French  revolutionists,  and  was  based,  as  to  civil  in- 
stitutions, largely  upon  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States.  The  fierce  denunciation  of  the  reform  laws 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Mexico,  and  the  unalterable 
hostility  of  all  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic  party  to 
the  abolition  of  the  fiicros,  to  the  confiscation  of 
Church  property,  the  banishment  of  the  monks, 
and  the  freedom  of  worship,  convinced  Juarez  and 
his  associates  that  they  were  going  to  have  to  fight 
the  Church  party  in  any  case,  and  they  decided  that 
they  might  as  well  make  a  clean  sweep  of  it.  This 
they  did.  But  within  a  year  Mexico  was  plunged 
into  a  bloody  civil  war,  which  continued  for  ten 
years  and  included  as  one  of  its  tragic  episodes  the 
uncalled-for  intervention  of  the  French  emperor  and 
the  brief  and  fatal  reign  of  Maximilian.  But  nei- 
ther the  foreign  invader  nor  the  retrogade  party  at 
home  could  quench  the  undying  devotion  of  the  Mex- 
ican people  to  the  ideal  of  a  free  and  popular  gov- 
ernment. Out  of  the  smoke  and  dust  of  civil  war, 
triumphant  on  the  ruins  of  the  enforced  empire, 
emerged  the  republic. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Catholicism  and  Revolutions — Imperium  in 

Imperio. 

Having  hastened  though  our  outHne  of  the  shift- 
ing pohtics  of  Mexico  during  the  middle  decades  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  we  shah  find  it  instructive  to 
go  again  over  the  same  period,  making  a  more  inti- 
mate study  of  some  of  the  intellectual  movements  of 
w^hich  these  kaleidoscopic  political  changes  were  the 
outward  expression.  The  rapidly  succeeding  revolu- 
tions which  marked  the  early  history  of  independent 
Mexico,  and  which  unfortunately  still  characterize 
the  effort  at  self-government  of  other  Spanish  Amer- 
ican countries,  are  not  due,  as  some  would  have  us 
suppose,  to  the  "natural  incapacity  for  self-govern- 
ment of  the  Spanish-American  peoples,"  nor  wholly 
to  the  unregulated  ambitions  of  their  military  lead- 
ers. These  are,  no  doubt,  contributory  causes,  but 
they  themselves  have  their  origin  in,  and  obtain  their 
potency  for  harm  from,  the  same  great  underlying 
cause,  namely,  the  hostility  of  the  Catholic  Church 
to  popular  government.  This  hostility  is  a  legacy  of 
the  Church  from  its  golden  age,  and  though  it  may 
be  on  occasion  veiled,  and  is  often  flatly  denied, 
it  exists  nevertheless,  showing  itself  in  just  that  de- 
gree which  the  temper  of  any  people  or  govern- 
ment will  permit.  The  traditions  of  the  Cath- 
(94) 


Obstacles  to  Self-Government.  95 

olic  hierarchy  are  autocratic.  Unquestioning  obe- 
dience is  with  it  a  fundamental  tenet.  If,  there- 
fore, a  people  who  for  three  hundred  years  have  been 
carefully  trained  by  that  hierarchy  not  to  think  for 
themselves,  and  taught  that  virtue  is  wholly  in  obe- 
dience and  subserviency  and  not  at  all  in  boldness 
or  initiative,  displays  afterwards  as  a  consequence 
of  that  training  some  degree  of  unreadiness  for  the 
responsibilities  of  self-government,  is  it  not  invidious 
to  call  such  a  state  "natural  incompetency"?  It  may 
be  incompetency,  but  It  is  not  natural;  it  is  acquired. 
The  nation  so  situated  deserves  sympathetic  good 
will  from  those  who  were  better  trained,  not  con- 
tumely. 

In  the  same  way,  the  mischievous  potency  of  the 
unrestrained  ambitions  of  leaders, — ambitions  which 
have  so  often  plunged  Mexico  and  other  Spanish- 
American  states  into  war, — is  to  be  traced  directly 
to  the  readiness  of  the  Church  party  to  develop  and 
avail  themselves  of  these  ambitions.  The  priests 
and  their  associates  do  not  exactly  create  them,  to 
be  sure.  But  after  a  few  experiences,  the  common 
soldier  is  not  ready  to  follow  every  new  hero  who 
springs  up  with  a  patriotic  pronunciamiento  against 
the  existing  government  simpl\'  for  glory.  He 
had  rather  stay  at  home  and  plow  his  field  or 
wield  his  saw  and  hammer.  What  will  tempt  him 
to  fight?  Money;  nothing  else,  especially  when  the 
issues  as  tn  patriotism  are  so  nicely  ])alancecl  that 
only  an  expert  conltl  decide  on  which  side  duty  lies. 


96  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

That  it  was  the  money  of  the  Church  which  fitted  out 
the  expeditions  that  made  havoc  of  the  Hberal  gov- 
ernment in  Mexico  so  often  as  that  government  be- 
gan to  settle  down  to  business,  will  be  perfectly  evi- 
dent to  any  one  who  cares  to  go  into  the  details  of 
the  country's  history.  Mexico  stopped  this  inter- 
meddling at  last.  This  she  accomplished  by  the  ef- 
fective measure  of  removing  at  one  stroke  the  wealth 
which  had  been  the  source  of  the  Church's  power. 
Since  that  time  the  country  has  had  peace.  Other 
struggling  republics  may  have  to  profit  by  her  exam- 
ple. 

There  was  never  a  time  in  the  history  of  any  of 
the  colonies  of  Spain  when  the  leaders  of  the  Church 
were  willing  to  let  the  government  alone.  Often,  it 
is  true,  they  interfered  to  the  advantage  of  the  peo- 
ple. Archbishops,  bishops,  vicar  generals,  abbots, 
and  even  friars  and  priests,  often  made  the  lot  of  the 
representatives  of  the  Spanish  crown  an  unhappy 
one.  Their  power  over  the  people  was  so  absolute, 
and  their  following  so  blindly  devoted  to  them,  that 
in  a  crisis  they  could  count  on  the  support  of  prac- 
tically the  whole  population.  The  viceroys  and  cap- 
tains general  did  not,  it  is  true,  take  much  account 
of  the  people ;  yet  nobody  cared  to  govern  a  province 
and  be  at  the  same  time  the  best  hated  man  in  it. 

Almost  as  soon  as  the  independence  of  Mexico  had 
been  secured,  the  conservative  or  monarchical  party 
regretted  it.  They  had  counted  surely  on  securing 
Ferdinand  VII.  to  be  king  of  New  Spain,  and  even 


Source  of  the  Church's  Power.  97 

Emperor  Iturbide,  fervent  Catholic  that  he  was, 
did  not  satisfy  them.  His  "empire"  fell  still  far- 
ther short  of  pleasing  the  hardy  patriots  who  had 
supposed  that  independence  and  liberty  were  synony- 
mous, and  who  had  little  mind  to  see  all  their  sac- 
rifices and  bloodshed  result  merely  in  the  substitution 
of  one  autocrat  for  another.  This  grim  and  patient- 
ly persistent  fidelity  to  the  republican  ideal  has  been 
a  feature  of  Mexico's  history  from  that  day  onward. 
The  distaste  for  popular  government  on  the  part  of 
the  Catholic  leaders  has  been  no  more  deep-seated 
than  has  been  loyalty  to  freedom  among  the  masses 
of  the  Mexican  people.  So  ineradicable  has  been  this 
loyalty  on  the  one  hand,  and  so  incapable  has  the 
conservative  party  shown  itself  on  the  other,  of  free- 
ing the  governments  set  up  by  its  representatives 
from  the  practices  and  attitude  of  an  odious  tyranny, 
that  for  almost  a  century,  while  the  resources  of  the 
two  parties  were  more  or  less  evenly  balanced,  it 
seemed  impossible  for  either  to  manage  public  af- 
fairs in  a  way  satisfactory  to  the  other. 

The  balance  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Church 
party  was  soon  found  to  be  due  to  its  immense  wealth 
and  its  compact  organization.  It  had  always  been  a 
sort  of  impcriiim  in  impcrio.  Its  authority  was  ex- 
ercised quite  independently  of  that  of  the  state.  Sep- 
arate and  special  tribunals  for  its  officials,  with 
awards  of  penalties  and  immunities  in  which  the 
state  dared  not  interfere,  and  a  complete  financial 
system  with  an  iiiiniense  revenue  and  a  manner  of 
7 


g8  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

accounting  independent  of  all  outside  observation, 
placed  the  Church  in  a  position  to  dictate  terms  to  any 
government  which  might  affect  to  disregard  its  wish- 
es. Arrayed  against  this  venerable  and  powerful 
ecclesiastical  machinery,  with  its  spiritual  sanctions 
and  its  awards  and  punishments  not  confined  to  earth 
but  reaching  also  within  the  veil,  were  first,  the  pro- 
gressive and  intelligent  patriots  who,  having  studied 
the  science  of  government  and  the  needs  of  their 
country,  had  espoused  with  unfaltering  devotion  the 
cause  of  religious  and  political  liberty.  With  them 
were,  secondly,  the  native  instincts  of  the  great  mass 
of  native  Mexicans,  confused  in  their  minds,  it  is 
true,  by  the  opposition  to  their  course  of  the  vener- 
ated Church  and  its  priesthood,  yet  loving  liberty 
with  all  the  ardor  of  their  untutored  nature,  smart- 
ing under  numerous  and  long-inflicted  tyrannies, 
and  blindly  devoted  to  their  beautiful  native  land 
which,  despite  the  long-continued  occupancy  of  the 
foreigner,  they  instinctively  believed  to  be  theirs  by 
right.  The  Creoles  and  Mestizos  fluctuated,  now 
joining  themselves  with  great  enthusiasm  to  the  pa- 
triot party,  and  again,  unable  to  grasp  the  ultimate 
purpose  of  its  leaders,  or  by  reason  of  some  step  on 
their  part  peculiarly  offensive  to  the  clergy,  rallying 
to  the  priests  not  less  heartily,  always  subject  to  the 
seductive  persuasion  of  good  wages  and  loot. 

With  such  constituent  elements,  the  revolutions 
in  Mexican  government  are  seen  to  have  been  both 
intelligible  and  inevitable.   Following  this  clew,  some 


Revolutions  Explained.  gg 

sort  of  sequence  may  be  traced  in  that  weary  suc- 
cession of  disturbances  which  long  vexed  that  coun- 
try and  w^hich  still  puzzles  students  of  Central  and 
South  American  politics.  For  though  the  pope  has 
kind  things  to  say  about  strong  republics,  like  France 
and  the  United  States,  in  all  countries  where  repub- 
licanism is  still  weak  and  struggling  the  Church  will 
be  found  arrayed  against  it.  If  a  Santa  Anna  be  put 
forward  by  the  conservatives  as  their  choice  for 
president,  it  will  very  soon  be  found  that  it  is  be- 
cause his  ideal  of  government  is  the  same  as  theirs, 
and  that  once  he  is  elected,  instead  of  abiding  by 
the  constitution  he  has  proclaimed  himself  dictator. 
This  fashion  of  changing  a  constitutional  presidency 
into  a  military  dictatorship,  to  meet  emergencies,  is 
one  which,  unfortunately,  commends  itself  to  men  of 
ambitious  temper,  even  though  they  have  been  put 
forward  by  the  patriot  party.  It  has  thus  come  to 
pass  in  such  countries  as  Venezuela  and  Colombia 
that  tyranny  on  the  part  of  the  man  in  power  is  the 
rule,  whether  he  be  a  liberal  or  a  conservative. 

Nevertheless  the  Catholic  party  must  bear  the 
odium  of  having  set  the  baleful  example,  and  of  hav- 
ing reduced  the  people  to  such  a  state,  through  its 
management  of  their  spiritual  and  intellectual  af- 
fairs, that  they  are  really  not  able  to  carry  the  bur- 
den of  a  representative  government.  It  is  something 
of  a  puzzle  to  make  out  why,  at  least  in  the  realm  of 
practical  politics,  the  Catholic  hierarchy  should  pre- 
fer the  autocratic  to  the  democratic  form  of  govern- 


100  A  New^  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

ment.  In  no  other  countries  in  the  world  is  that 
Church  so  truly  prosperous  as  in  the  United  States, 
England,  and  France.  Where  its  people  have  been 
raised  by  popular  education  to  an  intellectual  level 
such  that  public  sentiment  forbids  and  even  makes 
impossible  that  immorality  and  indolence  of  the 
priesthood  and  those  idolatrous  superstitions  on  the 
part  of  the  people  which  are  the  disgrace  and  the 
burden  of  Catholicism  in  purely  Catholic  countries, 
that  Church  takes  its  place  with  others  in  a  sphere  of 
respectability  and  Christian  activity  such  as  at  once 
to  win  the  esteem  of  the  outside  world  and  to  increase 
the  vitality  and  promise  of  the  Church  itself.  And, 
in  particular,  a  government  like  that  of  the  United 
States,  which  avowedly  eschews  all  intermeddling 
in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  offers  a  field  for  the  devel- 
opment of  the  Church  far  preferable  to  that  under 
some  autocratic  ruler  whose  assertion  of  his  divine 
right  to  rule  in  all  things  constantly  brings  him  into 
collision  with  pope  and  bishop.  Such  a  statement  ap- 
pears axiomatic,  yet,  strange  to  say,  in  France,  in 
Spain,  in  Austria,  in  Mexico,  in  South  America, — 
everywhere,  indeed,  where  it  has  been  able  to  wield 
its  influence, — the  Catholic  Church  has  stoutly  set 
itself  against  religious  freedom,  even  against  any- 
thing bearing  the  semblance  of  political  freedom. 

The  explanation  of  this  contradictory  and  ulti- 
mately futile  attitude  must  be  sought  mainly,  as 
would  appear,  in  two  considerations.  First,  in  the  af- 
finity which  an  autocratic  hierarchical  system  natu- 


The  Enemy  of  Enlightenment.  loi 

rally  feels  for  a  political  autocracy.  All  the  wrang- 
lings  between  emperor  and  pope,  king  and  bishop, 
viceroy  and  vicar  general,  which  have  filled  the 
world  with  their  din  for  a  thousand  years,  have 
not  sufficed  to  eliminate  the  natural  affinity  exist- 
ing between  civil  and  ecclesiastical  autocrats.  Rome 
still  believes  tyranny  to  be  the  ideal  government. 

Not  less  powerful  is  the  second  consideration, 
which  is  tlie  fear  that  the  enlightenment  that  comes 
with  a  liberal  and  ^xDpular  government  will  cause  the 
people  to  grow  out  from  under  the  power  of  the 
priests.  A  traveler  in  the  West  Indies  who  fell 
sick  of  a  tropical  fever  there  says  that  during  his 
convalescence  his  black  nurse  constantly  admon- 
ished him,  A'V  pcnse  pas,  nc  pensc  pas!  That  is 
the  ideal  of  the  papal  system  in  dealing  with  men: 
"Do  not  think,  do  not  think!"  The  priest  will 
do  all  the  thinking  and  the  praying;  he  will  read 
the  Bible,  solve  the  problems  of  life,  open  the  gate 
of  heaven,  bear  the  whole  responsibility  of  salvation. 
A  liberal  government  must  set  up  schools,  must  open 
avenues  of  commerce  with  the  world,  must  brine: 
its  people  up  to  the  level  of  competition  with  other 
modern  peoples.  From  the  point  of  view  of  Catholi- 
cism, all  this  is  anathema.  That  Church  opposes  the 
jniblic  school  everywhere.  In  Mexico  it  fought  the 
railways  and  the  factories  and  tlic  telegraph  as  so 
many  devices  of  the  evil  one.  Thus  it  came  about 
that  the  hostility  between  the  thoughtful  ])atriots 
and  the  Catholic  party  there  waxed  hotter  and  hot- 


102 


A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 


ter  as  it  became  increasingly  evident  that  if  either 
triumphed  it  would  be  by  the  defeat  and  the  elimi- 
nation of  the  other.  After  nearly  fifty  years  of  the 
constant  setting  up  and  bowling  over  of  constitu- 
tional governments,  the  liberals  at  last  in  despera- 
tion took  a  step  so  radical  that  it  brought  on  the 
final,  bloody,  exciting,  and  decisive  struggle.  That 
drastic  measure  and  its  consequences,  dramatic,  trag- 
ic, vastly  significant,  must  occupy  us  in  another 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  XI. 
The  Reform  Laws  and  the  Constitution  of 

1857. 
Though  the  phrase  in  the  chapter  preceding  this 
which  describes  the  final  desperate  measure  of  the 
hberal  party  as  a  single  step  is  in  a  sense  correct, 
it  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  there  were  several  dis- 
tinct elements  in  this  decisive  movement.  It  had 
one  purpose,  to  break  the  power  of  the  Catholic 
party.  It  proceeded  to  accomplish  this  in  two  ways 
— first,  by  attacking  the  Church's  exclusive  prerog- 
atives and  compact  organization ;  and  second,  by  re- 
moving its  wealth.  Both  these  were  destructive 
measures.  They  excited  much  bitterness  at  the  time, 
and  even  yet  many  writers  are  unable  to  describe 
them  without  using  the  language  of  harsh  disap- 
proval. It  is  to  be  admitted,  too,  that  the  construc- 
tive work  has  not  yet  been  completed,  though  the 
history  of  Mexico  for  the  last  forty  years  shows  that 
it  has  been  ably  begun. 

£^[~The  two  measures — that  is,  the  abolition  of  the 
fueros,  those  civil  and  judicial  prerogatives  of  the 
ecclesiastics  and  the  soldiers,  the  doing  away,  in 
brief,  of  privileged  classes;  and  the  sequestration 
or  nationalizing  of  ecclesiastical  property  and  the 
breaking  up  of  religious  orders— were  both,  at  least 
by  implication,  embodied  in  the  new  constitution, 


104  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

adopted  February  5,  1857,  ^^^^  promulgated  a  week 
later.  Both  had,  however,  taken  form  earher  and, 
with  certain  other  enactments,  gone  before  the  coun- 
try under  the  general  name  of  Leyes  de  Rcforma,  or 
reform  laws.  The  assertion  of  the  principles  in- 
volved in  them,  to  wit,  that  no  classes  should  have 
special  rights  before  the  law  and  that  overgrown 
monopolies  should  not  be  allowed  to  congest  in  their 
coffers  money  needed  for  the  public  welfare,;  may 
be  traced  respectively  to  Benito  Juarez  and  to  Val- 
entin Gomez  Farias. 

Juarez  was  a  jurist  by  temper  and  training.  Dur- 
ing a  term  as  governor  of  his  native  state  of  Oaxaca 
he  had  formulated  a  code  of  laws  for  that  state — the 
first  Mexican  code,  it  is  believed,  ever  proclaimed. 
A  little  later,  banished  by  the  overweening  jealousy 
of  Santa  Anna,  then  dictator,  he  was  forced  to  spend 
more  than  a  year  in  the  United  States.  This  time  he 
employed  (at  New  Orleans)  in  a  careful  study  of 
the  laws  and  principles  underlying  our  free  institu- 
tions; so  that  when  he  was,  after  a  few  years  (in 
1855),  appointed  chief  justice,  under  President  Al- 
varez, he  promptly  formulated  a  law  for  the  bet- 
ter '"administration  of  justice."  This  law  struck  a 
deathblow^  at  the  fitcros,  under  which,  ever  since  the 
Middle  Ages,  ecclesiastics  and  soldiers  had  enjoyed 
the  privilege  of  trial  for  crime  by  special  courts  of 
their  own  order.  How  grave  and  far-reaching  an 
encroachment  on  popular  liberty  such  special  priv- 
ileges are  can  scarcely  be  conceived  by  those  who 


■'■■J 


BKNITtJ  JUARKZ. 


The  Fueros.  ^ 

the  lau.  The  ecclesiastical  courts,  especially,  were 
even  more  of  a  farce  than  the  courts-martial,  Ld  the 
exemption  of  members  of  religious  orders  from  any 
adequate  punishment  for  crimes,  to  say  nothino-  of 
misdemeanors,  was  a  source  of  constat  and  acute 
exasperatioi.  to  the  common  people.     These  fueros 

7hTrZ  r  ^  '"°'^'  "^  "^^"^  '''^'  f^--^^  borne  by 
the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  special  sacredness  of  the 
priesthood. 

Priests,  friars,  and  soldiers  banded  together  in  a 
furious  resistance  against  the  attack  on  their  pre- 
cious prerogatives.     But,   though   the   conflict  was 
long  and  sanguinary,   the  law  stood.     It  was  not 
merely  the  sturdy  ''little  Indian"  who  was  warrino- 
against  these  hoar  anachronisms.     The  tide  of  eiv 
'ghtened    modern    sentiment,    the   on-coming   ava- 
lanche of  the  Rights  of  Man,  bore  down  upon  these 
crumbling  monuments  of  feudal  days  and  crushed 
and  buried  them  forever. 

The  other  measure,  equally  vital  to  the  republic 
and  equally  odious— perhaps  even  more  hateful— to 
tlie  Church,  the  nationalizing  of  Church  property 
was  not  devised  out  of  hand  like  the  abolition  of  the 
fneros.    As  far  back  as  1833,  Gomez  Farias,  one  of 
the  ablest  financiers  Mexico  ever  produced,  suggest- 
ed as  a  possible  mode  of  meeting  the  financial  crisis 
to  which  the  defenders  of  the  government  had  come, 
the  sequestration  of  some  of  the  vast  holdings  of  the 
Church.     The  Church,  he  said,  gets  the  full  benefit 


lo6  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

of  the  government's  protection,  yet,  though  she  is 
rich  while  all  others  are  poor,  she  contributes  noth- 
ing to  the  government's  aid.  Again  in  the  emer- 
gency of  the  war  with  the  United  States  he  made  a 
like  suggestion.  The  Church  authorities,  instead  of 
meeting  these  intimations  with  a  voluntary  offering, 
listened  to  them  with  cold  disdain.  After  a  sharp 
debate  in  congress,  however,  this  second  effort  of  the 
great  financier  took  the  form,  in  1848,  of  a  forced 
loan  from  the  Church  to  help  meet  the  expenses  of 
the  war  that  had  just  closed. 

By  this  time  Gomez  Farias  was  beginning  to  feel 
the  burden  of  age.  In  Benito  Juarez,  Melchor 
Ocampo,  Miguel  Lerdo  de  Tejada,  and  other  ardent 
young  patriots,  he  had  found,  however,  faithful  dis- 
ciples. These  took  up  the  conflict  where  he  left  q££«\ 
The  straits  of  the  Church  party  brought  Santa  An- 
na, temporarily  disgraced  by  his  failures  in  the  cam- 
paigns against  the  Americans,  back  to  power  again. 
With  the  singular  fatuity  which  ever  afflicted  him 
when  dealing  with  civil  government,  he  promptly 
proclaimed  himself  not  president,  but  dictator.  This 
was  in  1853.  He  compromised  with  the  leaders  of 
the  Church  party  as  to  this  forced  loan,  and  thus  so- 
lidified them  in  his  support.  But  the  very  name  of 
dictator  was  hateful  to  the  majority  of  the  people, 
and  in  a  short  time  the  patriotic  element  rallied  once 
more  in  such  force  that  Santa  Anna  was  driven  again 
into  exile,  and  Juan  Alvarez,  an  old  but  patriotic  gen- 
eral, placed  in  the  presidential  chair.    It  was  as  min- 


Nationalizing  Church  Property.  107 

ister  of  justice  under  him  that  Juarez  brought  out 
his  reform  law  for  the  administration  of  justice. 

Alvarez  gave  way  in  the  autumn  of  1855  to  Igna- 
cio  Comonfort,  who  was  at  the  time  supposed  to  be  a 
stanch  liberal,  and  as  such  had  been  elected  presi- 
dent. He  appointed  Lerdo  de  Tejada  his  secretary 
of  the  treasury,  and  within  a  very  short  time  this  dis- 
ciple of  Gomez  Farias  brought  to  the  cabinet  his  proj- 
ect for  the  confiscation  and  sale  of  mortmain  proper- 
ties. This  law  was  in  imitation  of  similar  enact- 
ments on  the  part  of  nearly  all  European  govern- 
ments. In  Mexico,  as  elsewhere,  it  lay  almost  wholly 
against  the  Catholic  Church  and  its  several  religious 
orders.  These  were  virtually  the  only  holders  of 
property  that  could  rightly  be  classified  as  mortmain. 
The  law  was  approved  by  the  cabinet  of  Comonfort 
and  passed  by  the  liberal  congress.  But  Comonfort 
himself,  whether  bribed  thereto,  or  because  of  natural 
timidity,  began  to  waver  in  his  assertion  of  liberal 
principles.  The  Church  party,  already  aroused  by 
the  abolishment  of  the  special  ecclesiastical  courts  un- 
der the  law  of  Juarez,  were  driven  to  even  fiercer  re- 
sentment by  this  attack  on  their  property. 

Meanwhile,  during  the  same  year,  1856,  the  con- 
stituent convention  or  congress  was  laboriously  ham- 
mering out  a  new  constitution.  Its  members  freely 
admitted  that  this  was  to  be  cast  largely  upon  the 
basis  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  of 
America.  That  involved  precisely  most  of  the 
principles  underlying  the  reform  laws  that  had  just 


io8  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

been  promulgated,  though  they  had  not  yet  been  car- 
ried into  effect.  In  spite  of  the  half-hearted  backing 
of  the  president,  the  document,  when  finished,  in 
1857,  was  adopted  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote  of 
the  body  that  had  framed  it.  The  aged  Gomez  Fa- 
rias, amid  the  reverent  applause  of  the  whole  assem- 
bly, tottered  forward  on  the  arms  of  his  sons  to  affix 
his  signature  to  this  instrument,  the  fruition  of  his 
fondest  hopes  during  a  long  and  strenuous  life.  The 
principle  of  equal  rights  before  the  law  was,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  included  as  fundamental  in  the  consti- 
tution. The  loss  of  the  Church's  special  prerogatives 
and  of  the  right  of  its  priesthood  to  support  by  tax- 
ation was  also  implied  in  that  instrument,  which 
made  no  mention  of  a  state  Church  and  declared 
that  worship  should  be  free  (Art.  9).  The  entering 
wedge  on  the  subject  of  property  was  in  the  form  of 
a  brief  statement  (Art.  2y)  that  no  corporation,  civil 
or  ecclesiastical,  should  hold  real  estate,  except  such 
as  is  strictly  necessary  for  its  own  purposes.  The 
instrument  is  altogether  an  admirable  one.  a  monu- 
ment to  the  men  who  formulated  it. 

Upon  the  proclamation  of  the  constitution  the 
gathering  storm  of  opposition  broke.  Comonfort 
was  not  a  sufficiently  resolute  man  to  face  the  con- 
flict which  all  saw  was  inevitable,  and  was  torn  wnth 
conflicting  emotions  by  the  distress  of  his  mother,  an 
ardent  Catholic,  to  whom  he  was  deeply  devoted. 
The  champions  of  freedom  had  at  last  laid  hands 
upon  those  time-honored  abuses  which  had  hitherto 


Benito  Juarez  President.  109 

thwarted  all  their  efforts,  and  proposed  to  sweep 
them  out  of  existence.  The  wealth  and  intelligence 
and  close  organization  of  the  ecclesiastical  opposi- 
tion party,  backed  by  the  blind  devotion  of  the  great 
host  of  adherents  of  the  Church,  made  a  most  formid- 
able combination.  Comonfort,  weakly  yielding  for  a 
time,  enough  to  throw  the  control  of  affairs  at  the 
capital  of  the  republic  and  most  of  the  machinery  of 
the  federal  government  into  the  hands  of  the  conserv- 
atives, at  last  found  his  position  between  his  own 
cabinet  and  the  enemies  of  the  constitution  so  uncom- 
fortable that  he  slipped  out  of  the  country  and  was 
lost  to  the  struggle.  This  brought  Juarez,  president 
of  the  supreme  court,  into  the  presidential  chair 
about  the  beginning  of  1855.  Juarez  had  long  held, 
with  Gomez  Farias,  ideas  concerning  the  property 
and  power  of  the  Catholic  Church  more  radical  than 
any  that  had,  up  to  that  time,  been  embodied  in  the 
legislation.  Seeing  that  the  issue  was  at  last  joined 
and  that  nothing  but  drastic  measures  could  sustain 
the  liberal  cause,  one  of  his  first  acts  was  to  proclaim 
on  the  authority  of  himself  and  his  cabinet — congress 
not  being  at  the  time  in  session — a  law  "nationaliz- 
ing," that  is,  confiscating  to  the  uses  of  the  govern- 
ment, all  the  productive  properties  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  This  was  in  strict  conformity  with  the  ar- 
ticle of  the  constitution  that  no  corporation  should 
hold  any  more  property  than  it  needed  for  its  spe- 
cific purposes.  Tt  added  to  tlie  mortmain  holdings 
which  had  been  sequestered  under  the  law  of  Lerdo 


no  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

all  the  productive  real  estate  and  the  immense  in- 
come from  mortgages  on  real  estate  which  made  the 
Catholic  Church  at  that  time  the  possessor,  as  has 
been  estimated,  of  at  least  one-third  the  total  wealth 
of  the  country.  A  little  later,  during  the  stress  of  the 
war  which  immediately  broke  out,  these  enactments 
were  enlarged  and  confirmed.  They  were  gathered 
up  and  incorporated  in  a  constitutional  law  a  good 
many  years  later,  known  as  the  Lerdo  law  of  1874.  It 
was  promulgated  during  the  presidency  of  Lerdo 
de  Tejada, — not  Don  Miguel,  the  minister  of  Co- 
monfort  in  1856,  but  his  younger  brother,  Don  Se- 
bastian, who  was  president  from  1873  to  1876.  In 
this  final  form,  modified  slightly  in  1901,  the  con- 
stitutional law  now  stands.  It  allows  no  Church  to 
hold  real  estate,  unless  that  real  estate  is  directly 
and  immediately  utilized  for  the  purposes  of  the 
Church. 

The  abolition  of  the  religious  orders  was  a  measure 
closely  involved  with  this  same  church  property  ques- 
tion. It  began  in  1857,  when,  shortly  after  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  constitution,  while  Comonfort  still 
showed  some  little  energy  in  its  enforcement,  a  rev- 
olution broke  out  against  his  government  under  the 
lead  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in  Puebla.  The 
president  in  person  led  the  army  of  the  federal  gov- 
ernment for  the  suppression  of  this  revolt.  The  cam- 
paign was  brief  but  bloody  and  decisive,  resulting  in 
a  complete  victory  for  the  government.  Since  the 
uprising  had  been  excited  by  the  bishop  of  Puebla 


The  Franciscans  Banished.  iii 

and  his  associates  in  the  Church,  the  victorious  pres- 
ident promptly  confiscated  and  sold  enough  of  the 
Church  property  in  that  state  to  pay  the  expense  of 
the  campaign.  Returning  to  Mexico,  it  was  reported 
to  him  that  members  of  the  order  of  Franciscans, 
who  had  a  huge  and  wealthy  monastery  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  city,  had  been  plotting  against  the  gov- 
ernment. Suspicious  already  and  not  in  a  mood  to 
be  very  tolerant  of  such  things,  Comonfort  promptly 
issued  a  decree  banishing  the  entire  order  and  confis- 
cating their  property.  Through  the  monastery  itself 
he  opened  a  wide  street,  which  is  still  called  Inde- 
pendence Street.  The  large  chapel  which  belonged 
to  the  establishment  remained  for  a  good  many  years 
in  the  hands  of  the  government,  and  was  then  bought 
by  a  representative  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  for  the  use  of  that  Church.  It  was  later, 
through  some  mismanagement,  thrown  on  the  mar- 
ket, and  wealthy  Catholics  not  long  since  bought 
back  the  old  church  and  opened  it  again  for  Catho- 
lic worship. 

During  the  conflict  which  began  in  1858,  and  did 
not  really  terminate  till  1867,  Juarez  found  himself 
under  the  necessity  of  abolishing  all  the  remaining 
religious  orders.  The  Jesuits  had  already  fallen  into 
ill  repute  and  been  banished  from  a  number  of  Eu- 
ropean countries.  Their  organization  was  so  com- 
pact, and  their  general  officers  so  ambitious,  that 
they  had  been  during  their  century  of  existence  not 
unfrequently  in  collision  with  the  pope  and  the  Ro- 


112  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

man  Catholic  Church  itself.  The  Franciscans  and 
the  Augustinians  had  been  extremely  active  as  mis- 
sionaries in  the  early  history  of  Mexico.  Their 
friars  had  had  much  to  do  with  conciliating  and 
controlling  the  native  population.  As  an  outcome 
of  their  success,  and  in  the  same  way  as  has  been 
exhibited  in  almost  every  other  country  where  they 
have  had  a  hold,  they  had  accumulated  vast  wealth. 
These  accumulations,  reacting  upon  the  orders  them- 
selves, had  served  to  corrupt  them  and  cause  their 
degeneration.  When  the  question  finally  arose  as  to 
whether  they  should  be  allowed  to  retain  this  wealth, 
they  w^ere  joined  as  one  man  against  the  liberal  gov- 
ernment. Seeing  the  power  for  evil  of  their  close 
organization  and  unanimity,  President  Juarez, 
whose  only  aim  was  the  establishment  of  a  popular 
government,  cost  what  it  might,  cut  this  Gordian 
knot  by  prohibiting  religious  associations  altogether. 
That  is  to  say,  men  and  women  under  vows  may  live 
in  Mexico,  but  may  not  live  together  in  the  same 
house.  This  radical  attack  upon  a  social  and  reli- 
gious system  which  had  existed  not  merely  unchal- 
lenged, but  even  approved  by  government  and  peo- 
ple, for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  is  an  exam- 
ple of  the  methods  of  this  Indian  patriot.  Now  that 
peace  has  long  reigned  and  the  need  of  such  legisla- 
tion is  not  so  apparent,  the  law  itself  is  no  longer 
strictly  enforced.  It  is  an  open  secret  that  many  of 
the  "colleges"  and  "seminaries"  scattered  through 
Mexico  to-day  are  convents  of  nuns  and  Jesuits. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
The  French  Intervention.     (I.) 

The  French  intervention,  involving  the  unhappy 
reign  and  death  in  Mexico  of  Maximihan  of  Austria, 
was  but  an  incident  in  the  great  struggle  there  be- 
tween conservatives  and  liberals.  It  is  true  that  it 
w^as  a  dream  of  the  Third  Napoleon,  who  was  in  fact 
much  abler  as  a  dreamer  than  as  a  ruler.  It  is  also 
true  that  it  was  the  realization  of  a  cherished  plan 
of  his  Spanish  wife,  an  ardent  Catholic  and  a  devout 
believer  in  the  theory  that  the  only  right  government 
for  any  people  is  a  Catholic  monarchy.  Louis  Na- 
poleon wished  to  see  Mexico  a  kingdom  subservient 
to  the  world-wide  French  empire,  which  he,  like  his 
great  predecessor,  thought  himself  raised  up  to 
found.  Eugenie,  his  wife,  wished  to  see  Mexico 
l)rought  again  into  the  class  of  devout  monarchies 
ruled  by  devout  ecclesiastics,  subservient  to  the 
Church  in  Spain  and  Rome.  But  neither  of  these 
dreamers  would  have  dared  to  take  open  measures  to 
carry  out  such  ])lans  had  not  the  Church  party  in 
Mexico  itself  held  out  treasonable  hands  to  them. 

Just  as  the  enthusiasm  for  a  liberal  government 
under  popular  and  representative  forms  had  persisted 
in  the  minds  of  the  patriotic  and  liberty-loving  ele- 
ment in  Mexico's  population  during  the  whole  period 
since  the  davs  of  Hidalgo,  so  during  all  those  fifty 
8         '  (11,^) 


114  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

years  the  Catholic  party  in  that  country  had  with 
equal  stubbornness  held  to  its  original  purpose  of 
making  the  country  a  truly  faithful  kingdom  under 
a  believing  and  properly  approved  monarch.  There 
had  scarcely  been  a  day  during  all  those  years  when 
some  representative  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities in  Mexico  was  not  diplomatically  feeling" 
about  in  Europe  for  a  man  who  might  become  king 
of  Mexico.  The  thing  may  seem  absurd  to  the  read- 
er of  these  lines,  and,  indeed,  in  view  of  all  the  de- 
velopments on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  during  the 
past  hundred  years,  it  is  absurd ;  yet  it  did  not  so  ap- 
pear to  these  conservatives.  Their  instincts  were 
wholly  aristocratic.  They  had  no  faith  in  the  peo- 
2le,  and  believed  democracy  to  be  essentially  hostile 
to  religion,  if  not  atheistic.  The  archbishops  and 
bishops  who  constantly  bestirred  themselves  concern- 
ing this  matter  were  but  following  therein  the  illus- 
trious example  of  their  predecessors,  who,  through 
all  the  history  of  New  Spain  as  a  Spanish  province, 
had  constantly  kept  its  viceroys  in  hot  water  by  their 
interference  in  civil  affairs.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  has  never  had  any  mind  to  accept  a  separation 
between  Church  and  State. 

There  can  be  no  sort  of  question  that  Maximilian 
was  only  persuaded  to  undertake  the  precarious  ven- 
ture of  establishing  an  empire  in  Mexico  when  con- 
vinced that  the  real  leaders  among  the  Mexicans 
themselves  desired  it.  An  ingenuous  and  open-mind- 
ed young  man,  while  a  narrow  Catholic  he  was  in  no 


Maximilian    Persuaded.  1x5 

sense  a  tyrant  in  his  temper,  and  had  not  the  slightest 
disposition  to  embark  upon  the  enterprise  of  govern- 
ing a  people  entirely  unrelated  to  himself,  unless  it 
was  in  answer  to  a  demand  of  the  people  themselves. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  touch  briefly  here  upon  the 
manner  in  which  Napoleon  shrewdly  inveigled  En- 
gland and  Spain  into  a  seeming  support  of  his  en- 
terprise of  interference.  \Yhile  he  was  secretly  per- 
suading Maximilian  to  accept  the  venture,  and  ar- 
ranging with  the  Catholic  party  in  Mexico  to  present 
the  invitation  to  him  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the 
impression  that  it  was  the  unanimous  wish  of  the 
\\hole  Mexican  people,  he  was  arranging  with  En- 
gland and  Spain  to  make  a  demonstration  against 
Mexico  ostensibly  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the 
payment  of  her  obligations. 

There  were  some  bonded  debts  held  in  these  sev- 
eral countries  that  had  been  drawing  interest  for  a 
good  many  years.  When  the  collision  first  began 
between  Juarez  and  the  Church  party  in  1858,  the 
conservatives,  by  the  carelessness  or  treason  of  Co- 
monfort, — historians  are  not  agreed  as  to  which  it 
was, — held  the  capital  city  and  controlled  the  princi- 
pal resources  of  the  country.  Juarez  was  barely  able 
to  assemble  and  provision  the  troops  that  were  need- 
ed to  protect  the  threatened  constitution  and  the  tot- 
tering republic.  In  an  unguarded  moment,  and  to 
meet  the  emergency  of  a  dark  hour,  he  issued,  in 
1859,  a  proclamation  suspending  temporarily  the 
payment  of  interest  on   these   foreign   obligations. 


ii6  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

The  men  who  held  the  bonds  in  France  and  Ensfland 
and  Spain  raised  a  great  outcry.  The  Enghsh  gov- 
ernment, prompt  as  it  always  is  to  defend  the  inter- 
ests of  its  citizens,  began  measures  for  the  dispatch- 
ing of  an  armed  demonstration  in  order  to  convince 
the  government  of  Mexico  that  it  must  pay  its  debts. 
At  this  juncture  Napoleon  interposed,  suggesting 
that  France,  Spain,  and  England  make  common 
cause,  but  concealing  from  both  Spain  and  England 
his  real  purpose. 

The  plan  was  agreed  upon.  The  three  govern- 
ments sent  their  war  vessels  to  the  coast  of  Mexico, 
and  France  took  occasion  to  dispatch  along  with 
them  transports  carrying  a  small  army.  Representa- 
tives of  the  government  of  Juarez  explained  the  sit- 
uation to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  the  official  sent 
along  with  the  English  warships,  and  entered  into  a 
compact  with  him  to  resume  the  payment  of  interest 
and  to  provide  for  the  refunding  of  the  debt  so  soon 
as  it  was  possible.  About  the  same  time  the  English 
government  discovered  what  Napoleon  really  was 
working  for — that  is,  the  usurpation  of  the  Mexican 
government  by  means  of  his  tool,  Maximilian — and 
promptly  and  rather  roughly  denounced  the  treach- 
ery, declaring  that  England  would  be  no  party  to  it. 
The  Spanish  government  also,  having  made  a  satis- 
factory agreement  concerning  the  money  question 
with  the  ministers  of  Juarez,  withdrew  from  further 
cooperation  and  retired  its  vessels.     Meantime,  the 


Mexico  Prepared.  117 

designs  of  the  French  emperor  became  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge. 

It  will  be  necessary,  however,  to  go  back  for  a  mo- 
ment in  order  to  trace  more  minutely  the  events 
which  in  Mexico  itself  led  up  to  the  situation  ex- 
isting in  1864.  During  1859,  i860,  and  1861,  the 
\\ar  between  the  generals  who  supported  the  gov- 
ernment of  Juarez  and  the  constitution  of  1857,  and 
those  who  were  under  the  direction  of  the  Church 
party,  continued  with  great  bitterness.  After  the 
flight  of  Comonfort  at  the  beginning  of  1858,  the 
conservatives  established  a  government  in  Mexico  of 
which  Zuloaga  was  for  a  time  the  leader.  Several 
states  to  the  north  meantime  formed  a  coalition  and 
raised  an  army  to  support  the  constitution.  This  ar- 
my was  defeated  at  Salamanca,  March  8,  1858;  and 
for  the  constitutionalists  thereafter  disaster  followed 
disaster.  Only  Vera  Cruz,  where  Juarez  had  taken 
refuge,  held  out.  Generals  Miramon  and  Marquez 
became  the  leading  spirits  of  the  conservative  party, 
Miramon  occupying  a  so-called  presidential  office 
for  two  or  three  years.  The  sympathy  of  the  mass 
of  the  people  with  republican  principles  gradually 
strengthened  the  cause  of  Juarez  as  the  war  pro- 
gressed. Many  citizens  emerged  from  the  state  of 
indifference  into  active  partisanship  with  the  pa- 
triots goaded  by  the  inexcusable  cruelties  of  the 
clerical  leaders.  Marquez,  especially,  was  guilty  of 
so  many  and  such  atrocious  murders  that  his  name 
is  execrated  to  this  day  in  the  country  which  he  lived 


Ii8  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

but  to  disgrace,  and  where  he  died  a  few  years  ago, 
old,  poor,  decrepit,  forgiven  by  a  generous  govern- 
ment, but  unpardoned  by  an  outraged  pubHc, 

Again  and  again  Miramon,  who  was  an  able  mil- 
itary leader,  menaced  Vera  Cruz,  but  it  remained  im- 
pregnable. During  the  existence  of  this  short-lived 
and  futile  conservative  government,  it  negotiated  a 
ruinous  loan  at  the  hands  of  a  Swuss  banker  named 
Jecker,  an  obligation  that  afterwards  figured  largely 
in  the  quarrel  between  France  and  Mexico  as  an  al- 
leged casus  belli.  All  that  it  produced,  and  all  that 
the  conservatives  were  able  later  to  wrest  from  the 
people  in  forced  loans  and  otherwise,  was  at  last  ex- 
hausted, while  the  ragged  patriots,  instead  of  dimin- 
ishing in  numbers,  seemed  to  increase.  Under  Gen- 
erals Gonzales  Ortega,  Degollado,  Berriozabal,  Za- 
ragoza,  and  others,  the  constitutionalists  kept  up  the 
fight,  becoming  bolder  and  bolder  and  not  at  all  dis- 
mayed by  an  occasional  defeat.  In  December  of 
i860  Miramon  staked  all  in  a  great  battle  with  Or- 
tega, and  was  overwhelmingly  defeated.  He  lost 
his  artillery,  his  army  was  annihilated,  and  he  him- 
self barely  escaped  from  the  field  with  a  few  follow- 
ers. Returning  hurriedly  to  Mexico,  he  turned  over 
all  authority  remaining  to  him  to  the  Ayuntamiento 
and  left  the  country.  January  i,  1861,  Juarez  en- 
tered his  capital  in  triumph. 

During  that  year  the  French  troops  were  landed 
in  Mexico.  The  government  at  once  entered  into  an 
agreement  with  the  envoys  who  accompanied  them, 


Napoleon's  Diplomacy.  iig 

representing  France,  Spain,  and  England,  that  these 
troops  should  only  occupy  certain  specified  points, 
pending  the  negotiations  concerning  the  financial 
questions  which  had  brought  about  the  invasion. 
These  negotiations  were  not  very  lengthy.  A  settle- 
ment satisfactory  to  Spain  and  to  England  was,  as 
has  been  stated,  soon  reached,  and  their  war  ves- 
sels were  withdrawn,  all  the  sooner,  indeed,  because 
in  both  these  countries  the  purpose  of  Napoleon 
began  to  be  suspected,  and  the  public  and  the  op- 
position members  in  parliament  began  to  ask  un- 
comfortable questions.  Napoleon's  plans  being  not 
yet  mature,  he  was  almost  at  a  loss  for  an  excuse 
to  keep  the  soldiers  in  Mexico  till  the  time  should 
arrive  for  his  coup  d'etat.  Some  of  the  pretexts 
he  made  use  of  were  a  good  deal  like  those  the 
wolf  urged  against  the  lamb  in  the  fable.  As  a 
witty  speaker  in  the  French  parliament  said  in 
debate,  "First  it  was  declared  that  we  must  in- 
vade Mexico  because  Mexico  is  calling  for  us;  now 
it  is  to  punish  her  for  not  calling  for  uS'f" 

The  stubbornness  with  which  the  French  troops 
persisted  in  remaining  on  Mexican  soil  after  the 
others  had  retired  but  confirmed  Juarez  in  his  already 
well-grounded  suspicion  that  Napoleon  had  designs 
on  the  independence  of  Mexico.  The  astute  presi- 
dent could  not  fail  to  have  information  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Mexican  conservatives  were  play- 
ing into  the  hands  of  the  invader.  Profoundly 
stirred  by  the  treachery  of  this  attack  on  his  coun- 


120  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

try's  freedom,  and  foreseeing  but  too  clearly  the 
bitter  conflict  which  was  inevitable  unless  it  should 
be  soon  checked,  Juarez  issued  early  in  1862  a  proc- 
lamation warning  both  Mexicans  and  foreigners 
against  taking  part  in  this  attempt  on  the  nation's 
liberty,  and  declaring  that  all  who  disregarded  his 
warning  placed  themselves  outside  the  law.  It  was 
this  proclamation  which  was  later  held  to  warrant 
the  death  sentence  against  Maximilian  himself. 

In  the  spring  of  1862  Count  Lorencez  landed  in 
Vera  Cruz  with  a  large  addition  to  the  French 
troops,  and  at  once  advanced  into  the  interior.  By 
the  middle  of  April  hostilities  began.  The  recently 
defeated  conservatives  welcomed  the  French,  and  in 
Cordova,  which  the  invaders  had  taken  possession 
of,  "pronounced"  against  Juarez  and  set  up  a  rival 
government  with  Almonte  at  its  head.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  May  the  French  advance  reached  Puebla, 
where,  on  May  5,  was  fought  the  most  famous  bat- 
tle in  Mexico's  history.  To  the  surprise  of  every- 
body concerned,  the  ragged  peasant  army  of  the  pa- 
triots defeated  the  French  veterans.  Zaragoza,  the 
Mexican  general,  could  not  hold  his  ground,  and 
later  temporarily  retired,  but  the  fact  remained  that 
the  Mexicans  had  proved  the  French  not  to  be  in- 
vincible. The  country  thrilled  with  patriotic  pride 
at  the  news,  and  scarce  a  city  in  the  republic  is  to- 
day without  its  street  or  plaza  called  "Cinco  de 
Mayo"  (Fifth  of  May). 

For  nearly  a  year  Puebla  interposed  a  barrier  to 


The  French  in  Mexico  City.  I2i 

the  French  who  had  been  driven  back  from  its  gates. 
Then,  after  a  long  and  terrible  siege  by  Marshal  Fo- 
rey,  it  was  forced  to  capitulate,  the  patriots  losing 
nearly  ten  thousand  men  in  prisoners,  including  Gen- 
erals Ortega,  Alatorre,  Berriozabal,  and  others.  Or- 
tega's note  of  surrender  is  a  proud,  dignified,  and  pa- 
triotic document,  whicli  deeply  impressed  even  his 
enemies. 

Juarez  was  thereupon  driven  from  his  capital, 
which  became  untenable  when  Puebla  fell.  The 
French  troops  and  the  conservatives  occupied  it,  and 
the  plans  for  importing  an  emperor  were  rapidly 
consummated.  One  of  Napoleon's  pretexts  was  the 
Jecker  claim.  Now  Jecker  was  not  a  Frenchman, 
but  a  Swiss,  and  the  money  had  not  been  borrowed 
by  Juarez,  but  by  the  conservatives,  who  were  doing 
all  they  could  to  destroy  the  government  of  Juarez. 
Nevertheless,  the  president,  rather  than  submit  to  in- 
ler\ention,  had  at  last  agreed  to  assume  this  debt. 
Jecker  was  well  protected.  He  held  bonds  covering 
more  than  twenty-five  times  the  amount  of  money 
he  had  advanced.     The  whole  thing  was  absurd. 

The  truth  is,  Napoleon  hoped  to  get  money  out  of 
Mexico.  He  expected  to  help  Maximilian's  em- 
pire in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  it  under  lasting  obli- 
gations to  himself.  Then  he  counted  on  colonizing 
French  settlers  in  the  rich  mining  regions  of  the 
country  he  was  attemi)ting  to  exploit.  In  it  all  he 
seems  to  have  quite  left  out  of  his  calculations  the 
wishes  of  the  Mexican  people, — .mless,  indeed,  he  al- 


122  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

lowed  himself  to  be  persuaded  by  Eugenie  that  the 
ecclesiastics  who  were  clamoring  for  a  Catholic  mon- 
archy  were  the  true  representatives  of  that  people. 

The  French  soldiery  and  the  subservient  conserva- 
tives set  up  a  quasi  government  in  Mexico.  Napo- 
leon's money  was  paying  the  wages  of  foreign  troops 
who  were  harassing  the  scattered  liberal  armies  and 
driving  Juarez  from  one  city  to  another,  further  and 
further  north.  By  this  time  there  were  nearly  fifty 
thousand  French  soldiers  in  Mexico, 

An  "assembly  of  notables"  consisting  of  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty-one  members,  representing  ostensi- 
bly every  Mexican  state,  was  called  together  in  Mex- 
ico City,  July,  1863.  It  adopted  an  "act"  declaring 
in  favor  of  the  monarchical  form  of  orovernment 
and  offering  the  throne  to  Ferdinand  Maximilian, 
Archduke  of  Austria.  Several  representatives  of  the 
conservative  party,  then  in  Europe,  were  appointed  a 
committee  to  make  the  official  tender  to  Maximilian, 
and  if  he  failed  to  accept,  to  any  other  European 
Catholic  prince  whom  the  emperor  of  the  French 
should  designate.  To  the  surprise  of  everybody, 
Maximilian  replied  to  the  committee  that  he  was  un- 
willing to  go  to  Mexico  unless  invited  by  the  people 
of  that  country.  The  matter  was  therefore  referred 
back  to  Marshal  Bazaine,  then  in  command  of  the 
French  troops  in  Mexico  and  the  virtual  head  of  the 
conservative  government,  and  a  vote  favorable  to 
Maximilian  of  all  the  prominent  cities  then  "occu- 
pied by  the  French  bayonets"  was  promptly  secured. 


Maximilian  and  Napoleon.  123 

Maximilian,  upon  news  of  this,  declared  himself  sat- 
isfied. He  at  once  signed  a  compact  releasing  his 
claim  to  the  Austrian  throne  (he  was  a  brother  of 
the  present  Emperor  of  Austria),  and  another  with 
Louis  Napoleon,  the  latter  exhibiting  but  too  plainly 
the  animus  of  the  wily  Frenchman.  It  was  a  con- 
tract that  from  the  income  of  the  Mexican  empire 
should  be  returned  the  money  advanced  to  pay  Max- 
imilian's debt  on  his  palace  at  Miramar  and  for  the 
expense  of  his  voyage  to  Mexico,  the  outlay  for  the 
French  troops  in  Mexico,  the  Jecker  claim,  etc. — in 
all  amounting  to  one  hundred  and  seventy-three  mil- 
lions of  dollars ;  a  good  round  public  debt  to  hang 
about  the  neck  of  an  infant  empire. 

This  was  in  April,  1864.  By  the  29th  of  the  fol- 
lowing May  the  new  emperor  with  his  wife  Carlota 
had  arrived  at  the  port  of  Vera  Cruz,  and  the  cur- 
tain rose  upon  a  great  modern  tragedy :  in  the  month 
of  June,  1867,  just  three  years  later,  it  was  rung 
down.    Maximilian  was  dead  and  Carlota  insane. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  French  Intervention.     (II.) 

Having  trace4  with  some  particularity  the  events 
that  led  up  to  the  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  Mex- 
ico of  the  French  emperor  and  to  the  setting  up  of 
the  so-called  empire  of  Maximilian,  it  will  not  be  nec- 
essary to  follow  the  history  of  that  empire  in  detail. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  Maximilian,  the  whole 
thing  proved  a  ghastly  mistake.  But  Maximilian 
was  amiable  rather  than  able.  He  was  as  deficient 
in  real  acuteness  of  mind  as  in  firmness  of  will. 
From  the  beginning  he  allowed  himself  to  be  vic- 
timized by  the  designing  Napoleon  and  the  reaction- 
ary party  in  Mexico,  the  latter  availing  themselves 
in  influencing  him  of  the  sanctions  of  the  Church. 
Caught  in  the  vortex  of  a  deadly  struggle  between 
warring  elements  among  the  Mexican  people,  his 
sympathies  were  rather  with  those  who  opposed  than 
with  those  who  supported  him.  He  was  especially 
unhappy  in  the  selfishness,  the  avarice,  the  cruelty, 
and  the  retrograde  political  theories  of  those  who 
surrounded  his  court  and  became  his  advisers.  It 
was  also  his  unenviable  lot,  a  foreigner  himself,  to 
depend  for  the  stability  of  his  government  upon  hire- 
ling foreign  troops,  execrated  by  the  Mexicans  and 
themselves  by  no  means  enamored  of  the  task  that 
had  been  set  them. 

(134) 


Maximilian's  Mistake.  125 

Besides  these  essential  weaknesses  of  his  situation 
he  was  opposed  by  the  bull-dog  tenacity  of  Juarez 
and  the  natural  instincts  of  virtually  the  whole  Mex- 
ican people.  The  moral  strength  of  this  resistance 
was,  early  in  the  struggle,  vastly  increased  by  an  ill- 
judged  procedure  upon  Maximilian's  part.  In  the 
autumn  of  1863  it  was  reported  to  him  that  Juarez 
had  crossed  the  border  into  the  United  States.  This, 
according  to  the  constitution,  forfeited  his  right  to 
the  presidency.  He  had  indeed  been  careful  not  to 
take  the  step,  but  Maximilian  doubtless  believed  the 
report  which  came  to  him.  Instigated  probably  by 
Bazaine,  he  promulgated  therefore,  October  3,  1863, 
a  decree  to  the  effect  that  all  persons  found  in  arms 
against  the  empire,  now  the  only  existing  and  right- 
ful government,  should  be  treated  as  rebels  and,  aft- 
er trial  by  court-martial,  be  put  to  death.  Almost 
immediately  several  prominent  officers  in  the  insur- 
gent army.  Generals  Arteaga  and  Salazar  and  Colo- 
nels Diaz  and  Villagomez,  were  captured  at  Urua- 
pam  and  executed.  The  French  troops  were  com- 
manded by  their  officers  no  longer  to  take  prisoners, 
but  to  put  the  vanquished  to  the  sword.  These  meas- 
ures naturally  produced  a  tremendous  reaction. 

The  empire  had  no  income  worth  speaking  of,  and 
from  the  first  hegau  to  sink  into  hopeless  bankrupt- 
cy. When  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United 
States  left  the  American  government  free  to  ttun  its 
attention  to  the  manifest  affront  to  the  Monroe  doc- 
trine   of    which    Napoleon    liad    been    guilty,    and 


126  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

with  a  great  army  of  veteran  troops  at  hand  to 
enforce  its  demands ;  and  when  the  conviction  was  at 
last  forced  upon  Napoleon  himself  that  Mexico  was 
not  the  gold  mine  he  had  imagined  it  to  be;  and 
when  also  the  patriot  army,  rallying  from  the  de- 
feats that  had  marked  the  beginning  of  this  last 
struggle,  began  to  press  hard  upon  the  heels  of  the 
retiring  French  troops,  it  was  plain  to  be  seen  that 
the  toy  empire  was  doomed. 

The  rapidly  shifting  panorama  of  Mexico's  inte- 
rior affairs  during  the  dark  days  when  our  own  coun- 
try was  beginning  slowly  to  recover  from  her  gi- 
gantic and  bloody  struggle  is  one  of  the  romances 
of  history.  The  glittering  court  of  Maximilian  and 
Carlota,  who  seem  now  like  children  playing  with 
gilded  toys  upon  the  edge  of  an  abyss;  the  cynical 
double-dealing  of  Napoleon,  as  treacherous  with 
Maximilian  in  withdrawing  the  French  troops  as  he 
had  been  with  Mexico  in  introducing  them ;  the 
sturdy  constanc}^  of  the  little  Indian  president,  driv- 
en from  pillar  to  post,  till  he  was  crowded  at  last 
against  the  very  northern  boundary  of  the  country 
at  Paso  del  Norte  (now  named  Juarez  in  his  hon- 
or), yet  stoutly  proclaiming  himself  through  it  all 
the  true  and  legitimate  ruler  of  Mexico ;  the  gradual 
development  into  deadly  efficiency  of  the  ragged  pa- 
triot forces, — all  this  is  a  story  well  worth  the  tell- 
ing, but  which  I  cannot  delay  here  to  give  at  length. 

In  1866,  hurried  thereto  by  a  rough  intimation 
from  W.  H.  Seward,  then  the  American  Secretary 


French  Troops  W^ithdrawn.  127 

of  State,  and  by  the  presence  on  the  northern  border 
of  Mexico  of  a  body  of  veteran  American  troops, 
Napoleon  advised  Maximihan  that  he  was  going  to 
withdraw  the  French  army  from  Mexico.  Foreseeing 
the  inevitable  result  of  this,  Maximilian  reluctantly 
agreed  that  his  wife  should  hurry  away  to  the 
French  court  to  see  if  she  might  prevail  upon  Na- 
poleon to  alter  his  decision  and  to  keep  the  "Treaty 
of  Miramar,"  as  it  was  called.  That  treaty  provided 
for  the  gradual  withdrawal  of  the  French  troops 
during  a  number  of  years.  But  Napoleon  was  feel- 
ing too  severely  the  pinch  of  the  dead  expense  of 
sustaining  this  army,  and  rightly  dreaded  a  collision 
with  the  United  States.  His  mind  was  made  up. 
Carlota  upon  her  arrival  was  treated  with  such 
scant  politeness,  and  her  pleadings  so  rudely  reject- 
ed, that  she  left  Paris  the  victim  of  a  mania  of  fear 
and  anxiety  which  soon  destroyed  her  reason.  Her 
interview  with  the  pope  a  little  later  was  the  raving 
of  a  hysterical  and  already  half-crazed  woman. 

Maximilian,  upon  the  news  of  this,  and  witnessing 
the  preparations  for  the  retirement  of  the  French 
soldiers,  was  ready  to  abdicate  and  return  himself 
to  Europe.  Well  for  him  had  he  carried  out  this 
thought.  Indeed,  he  did  set  out  for  Vera  Cruz,  hav- 
ing prqjared  a  proclamation  in  which  he  abandoned 
the  throne,  and  went  as  far  as  Orizaba.  But  the 
Mexican  clericals  complained,  cajoled,  and  threat- 
ened. They  appealed  to  his  sense  of  honor  and  his 
supposed  obligations  to  them.     The  officials  of  the 


128  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

Church  promised  to  replenish  his  depleted  treasury 
from  their  strong  box.  A  majority  of  his  Council 
of  State  refused  to  accept  his  abdication.  So  at  last, 
after  several  months  of  vacillation,  he  returned  to 
the  capital. 

Failing  the  French  generals,  he  now  welcomed 
back  to  Mexico  the  conservative  military  leaders, 
Miramon  and  Marquez.  These  men,  though  at- 
tached to  his  cause,  he  had  hitherto  kept  abroad  on 
various  missions,  since  their  reputation  in  Mexico 
was  somewhat  unsavory.  To  them  he  now  intrust- 
ed the  task  of  reorganizing  the  imperial  army.  He 
selected  a  new  cabinet  and,  throwing  himself  into  the 
hands  of  the  Mexican  conservative  party,  prepared 
to  witness  the  final  act  in  that  long  and  losing  strug- 
gle which  it  had  waged  with  the  forces  of  freedom. 
His  wife  was  already  a  hopeless  lunatic;  his  broth- 
er, the  Emperor  of  Austria,  had  forbidden  him  to 
return  to  his  native  land;  his  mother  wrote  him  in- 
sisting bitterly  that  he  perish  amid  the  ruins  of  his 
empire  rather  than  longer  be  a  dupe  of  Napoleon; 
his  dreams  of  establishing  a  popular  and  successful 
government  for  Mexico  was  plainly  blighted.  Un- 
der the  stress  of  these  afflictions  he  bore  himself  with 
a  manly  serenity  more  creditable  to  him  than  any- 
thing else  in  his  career. 

The  funds  that  had  been  promised  from  the  cof- 
fers of  the  Church  were  given  but  grudgingly.  As 
rapidly  as  possible  the  royalist  troops  were  got  into 
some  sort  of  organization.     The  city  of  Oueretaro, 


Maximilian  at  Queretaro.  129 

beins:  a  strong-hold  of  the  Church,  which  was  at  that 
point  very  wealthy,  seemed  to  be  a  favorable  place 
for  their  concentration.  Maximilian,  placing  him- 
self at  the  head  of  the  army,  took  up  his  quarters 
there,  and  the  constitutionalists,  accepting  the  chal- 
lenge, began  to  concentrate  upon  this  city,  famous  al- 
ready as  the  birthplace  of  the  revolution  of  1810.  It 
lacks  much,  however,  of  being  an  ideal  place  in  the 
military  sense  for  defensive  operations.  The  repub- 
lican troops,  having  already  cleared  the  northern  part 
of  the  republic  of  their  enemies  and  opened  the  way 
for  the  return  southward  of  Juarez  and  his  cabinet, 
had  been  gathered  into  one  body  under  General  Es- 
cobedo  until  they  outnumbered  the  royalists,  whom 
they  probably  also  excelled  in  military  skill  and  mo- 
rale. This  Maximilian  himself,  with  that  frankness 
which  was  one  of  his  most  attractive  traits,  acknowl- 
edged. Writing  a  short  time  before  to  one  of  his 
ministers  concerning  the  need  of  reorganizing  his 
own  army,  he  said  of  his  opponents:  "The  republi- 
can forces,  wrongly  represented  as  demoralized  and 
united  solely  by  the  hope  of  pillage,  prove  by  their 
conduct  that  they  form  a  homogeneous  army  whose 
stimulus  is  the  courage  and  perseverance  of  a  chief 
moved  by  a  great  idea, — that  of  defending  the  na- 
tional independence  which  he  believes  threatened  by 
our  empire."  In  such  words  he  confesses  that  it  was 
a  misconception  which  gave  birth  to  his  ill-advised 
and  most  unfortunate  decree  of  October  3,  1863. 
Queretaro,  after  sharp  preliminary  fighting,  was 
9 


I30  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

surrounded  by  an  overwhelming  force,  and  besieged 
from  the  middle  of  March  to  the  middle  of  May, 
1867.  May  15,  the  besiegers  broke  into  the  city.  Its 
defenders  made  a  sally,  and  Maximilian  with  a  few 
followers  attempted  to  escape.  On  a  neighboring 
hill,  the  "Cerro  de  las  Campanas,"  he  was  captured, 
brought  back  to  the  now  surrendered  plaza,  and  with- 
in a  few  days  put  upon  trial  before  a  court-martial. 

The  one  blot  upon  the  proceedings  of  the  victori- 
ous republican  government  on  this  occasion  was  the 
constitution  of  this  court.  It  was  made  up  of  a  lieu- 
tenant colonel  and  six  captains,  all  so  youthful  as  to 
excite  the  suspicion  that  they  had  been  selected  in 
accordance  with  some  plan  to  insure  their  verdict. 
With  this  exception  the  proceedings  were  entirely 
regular.  The  charges  Avere  treason,  filibustering, 
etc.,  based  almost  wholly  on  the  presidential  decree  of 
1862.  Miramon  and  Mejia,  the  two  leading  Mex- 
ican conservative  generals,  were  placed  on  trial  at 
the  same  time  and  under  the  same  charges.  All  were 
allowed  able  counsel,  but  all  were  nevertheless  con- 
victed and  condemned  to  death. 

Juarez,  now  at  San  Luis  Potosi,  not  far  away, 
was  pressed  to  modify  the  sentence  of  Maximilian. 
Telegrams  poured  in  upon  him  from  all  over  the 
world.  Influential  Mexicans  and  foreigners  went 
post-haste  to  plead  with  him  in  person.  His  feelings 
were  deeply  moved  upon,  but  he  remained  firm.  "The 
welfare  of  the  people  demands  it,"  he  replied  to  ev- 
ery plea ;    'T    cannot   set   myself   above   the  public 


The  Execution.  131 

good."  To  a  protest  which  reached  him  from  South 
America  he  replied  with  some  warmth  that  he  was 
doing  as  he  did  not  for  his  own  sake,  nor  even  for 
that  of  ]\Iexico  alone,  but  for  the  sake  of  every  strug- 
gling American  republic.  The  student  of  history, 
however  keen  may  be  his  sympathy  with  the  un- 
fortunate Maximilian,  will  probably  have  to  agree 
that  the  instincts  of  Juarez  in  this  matter  were  sound. 
He  settled  for  a  long  time,  if  not  finally,  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  it  is  worth  while  for  a  scion  of  Eu- 
ropean royalty  to  attempt  the  transfer  of  his  authori- 
ty to  American  soil. 

On  June  19,  1867,  the  sentence  of  the  court,  passed 
five  days  before,  was  executed.  Maximilian,  Mira- 
mon,  and  Mejia  were  taken  to  the  Cerro  de  las  Cam- 
panas'and  shot.  They  met  death  like  brave  men, 
Maximilian  exclaiming,  "May  my  blood  be  the  last 
that  is  shed  in  sacrifice  for  this  country!" 

The  infamous  Marquez  had  been  dispatched  a 
short  time  before  the  fall  of  Queretaro  to  Mexico  for 
reenforcements.  There  he  gathered  a  small  force 
and,  instead  of  returning  to  the  help  of  his  chief,  em- 
ployed his  time  in  wreaking  private  and  petty  grudges 
in  his  usual  brutal  manner.  Meantime  Porfirio  Diaz 
had  rallied  the  scattered  patriots  in  the  south  and 
laicl  siege  to  Puebla,  the  scene  of  so  many  conflicts 
between  royalists  and  republicans.  Before  Marquez 
could  come  to  its  aid  he  had  forced  its  surrender, 
April  2,  1867;  after  which  he  immediately  proceeded 
to  invest  Marquez  in  Mexico  City.     During  the  in- 


132  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

terval  between  the  fall  of  Queretaro  and  the  execu- 
tion of  Maximilian  he  was  slowly  pressing  in  upon 
this  last  stronghold  of  the  imperial  troops,  unwilling 
to  storm  the  city  where  there  were  many  adherents 
of  the  republic  and  which  he  foresaw  would  soon  be 
forced  to  surrender.  Marcpiez  was  at  last  put  aside 
by  others,  and  by  skillful  hiding  escaped  when  the 
city  was  captured.  On  June  20,  the  next  day  after  the 
death  of  Maximilian,  the  capital  of  his  empire  was 
unconditionally  surrendered  to  one  of  the  youngest 
and  one  of  the  strongest  of  the  patriot  generals.  The 
intervention  was  at  an  end.  July  15,  1867,  Pres- 
ident Juarez,  with  his  cabinet,  the  "Inmaculados," 
as  they  came  to  be  called,  quietly  entered  again  the 
capital  of  his  country. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
What  the  Republic  Faced, 

For  the  second  time  in  these  studies  we  have  thus 
come  to  the  final  triumph  of  the  independent  republic 
over  its  inveterate  foes,  at  home  and  from  abroad. 
The  cooperation  of  the  Catholic  Church  with  the  en- 
emies of  a  republican  form  of  government  became  at 
last  so  open  that  it  was  no  longer  on  either  side  even 
a  pretended  secret.  That  the  strength  of  that  Church 
as  an  opponent  lay  more  in  its  immense  wealth  than 
in  its  hold  upon  the  common  people,  powerful  as  this 
was,  became  evident  to  the  leaders  of  the  liberal  par- 
ty. From  this  it  came  to  be  with  them  a  matter  of 
public  policy  to  cut  the  sinews  of  that  strength  by 
annihilating  the  wealth  in  which  it  lay.  When  to 
this  consideration  was  added  the  stern  satisfaction 
of  despoiling  a  powerful,  implacable,  but  at  last  van- 
quished enemy,  to  say  nothing  of  the  crying  demands 
of  their  own  impoverished  treasury,  it  may  easily  be 
guessed  that  the  work  of  spoliation  was  thorough. 
Gomez  Farias,  Juarez,  Lerdo  de  Tejada,  Ocampo, 
and  the  rest,  were  slow  to  be  convinced  that  in  the 
confiscation  of  the  Church's  wealth  was  the  only  hope 
of  the  republic ;  but  having  at  last  put  their  hand  to 
tlie  plow,  they  did  not  look  back. 

While  this  is  true,  it  is  also  to  be  said,  to  the  credit 
of  all  concerned,  that  scarcely  ever  in  history  has  a 

(133) 


134  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

victorious  party  converted  to  the  uses  of  the  nation 
so  large  a  booty  with  so  little  of  scandal  attaching  to 
individuals  for  appropriating  to  themselves  for  pri- 
vate use  the  fruits  of  public  victory.  Many  a  scarred 
veteran  of  the  patriot  army  became,  it  is  true,  the 
proprietor  of  some  huge  shell  of  a  ravished  chapel 
or  of  the  rambling  and  thick-walled  cloisters  of  some 
abandoned  convent.  But  this  was  always  by  virtue 
of  a  clear  title  from  the  federal  government,  and 
meant  that  a  poverty-stricken  though  victorious  re- 
public had  no  other  means  of  rewarding  the  men 
whose  fidelity  and  valor  had  wrested  victory  from 
the  grasp  of  foes  so  numerous  and  so  powerful.  Jua- 
rez, the  great  leader,  virtually  all-powerful  after  the 
triumph  of  his  party  in  1867,  was  singularly  indif- 
ferent to  the  blandishments  of  wealth.  As  he  had 
proved  himself  incorruptible  and  unpurchasable  in 
the  days  of  his  poverty  and  threatened  defeat,  so 
now  he  successfully  met  the  still  severer  test  of  vic- 
tory and  power,  emerging  with  an  untarnished  name. 
Reconstruction  after  a  period  of  civil  war  is  at 
best  a  delicate  and  tedious  business.  In  Mexico, 
when  victory  over  the  French  brought  peace  at  last, 
the  task  of  Juarez  and  his  associates  was  not  merely 
reconstruction — it  was  rather  construction.  There 
had  never  been  a  civil  government  of  independent 
Mexico  worthy  the  name,  and  indeed,  to  tell  the 
whole  truth,  the  vice-regal  government  under  Spain 
had  been  a  grood  deal  of  a  travestv  on  the  name. 
While,  therefore,  at  some  points  in  the  previous  his- 


The  Republic  and  Citizenship.  135 

toiy  of  Mexico's  affairs  our  rapid  review  of  them  has 
shown  complex  and  puzzHng  situations,  that  period 
upon  which  we  now  enter  will  be  found,  if  possible, 
more  confusing  still.  It  is  simple  enough  to  say 
that  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Maximilian  empire  the  in- 
domitable Juarez  raised  the  fabric  of  a  free  republic, 
and  this  the  dazzling  genius  of  Porfirio  Diaz  has, 
through  more  than  three  decades,  confirmed  and 
beautified.  Such  a  statement  is,  happily,  strictly  true. 
Yet  it  by  no  means  tells  us  all  of  the  recent  history 
of  the  Mexican  people,  nor  does  it  disclose  those  con- 
ditions now  prevailing  in  that  country,  concerning 
which  the  intelligent  and  sympathetic  student  will 
wish  to  be  informed.  Upon  the  study  of  those  con- 
ditions this  and  the  succeeding  chapters  will  under- 
take briefly  to  enter.  They  must  be,  therefore,  even 
less  strictly  historical  than  those  which  have  pre- 
ceded. 

No  matter  how  ideally  perfect  a  system  of  pop- 
ular government  may  be,  it  remains  dependent  for 
its  successful  exemplification  on  the  character  of  the 
people  who  adopt  it.  A  single  man  of  genius  may 
be  a  successful  monarch  or  military  dictator.  A 
small  group  of  men,  trained  in  the  science  of  gov- 
ernment, may  carry  on  a  centralized  oligarchy.  But 
if  a  government  by  the  people  is  to  succeed,  the  gen- 
eral average  in  character  and  intelligence  of  the  peo- 
ple must  be  sucli  as  to  fit  them  for  the  duties  of  sov- 
ereign citizenship.  To  be  a  sovereign  citizen  is,  in 
other  words,  a  very  difi"crciit  matter  from  being  a 


136  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

subject  citizen.  It  is  at  this  point  of  the  fitness  of  the 
citizen  that  popular  governments  oftenest  meet  disas- 
ter. Much  study  has,  at  one  time  and  another,  been 
given  to  the  elaboration  of  republican  constitutions. 
But  the  most  beautiful  of  these  instruments  will  at 
times  refuse  to  "march."  A  good  workman  can  pick 
up  a  defective  or  broken  tool  and  with  it  turn  of¥ 
finished  and  beautiful  products,  while  in  the  hands 
of  one  who  is  unskilled  and  inefficient  the  finest  in- 
struments are  useless ;  the  implements  themselves  are 
ruined,  and  the  work  remains  ill  done.  It  is  the  as- 
sumption of  sovereign  obligations  by  the  citizen 
whose  training  and  character  have  not  made  him  a 
sovereign  in  spirit  that  has  so  repeatedly  brought 
popular  government  into  disrepute. 

The  best  friend  of  Mexico  will  not  deny  that  she 
has  run,  and  is  even  yet  running,  a  great  risk  at  this 
point.  Indeed,  what  else  could  have  been  expected  ? 
Had  the  hardy  and  self-reliant  Indians  whom  Cor- 
tez  found  been  put  at  once  upon  a  course  of  training 
for  it,  it  is  probable  that  they  might  very  soon  have 
been  brought  to  the  point  of  readiness  for  self-gov- 
ernment. But  this  was  not  done.  The  Spaniards  of 
the  sixteenth  century  exhibited  in  an  uncommon  de- 
gree that  sense  of  superiority  which  too  often  pos- 
sesses powerful  and  highly  civilized  peoples,  render- 
ing them  oblivious  to  the  human  rights  and  claims  of 
nations  less  favored.  It  did  not  occur  to  these  Span- 
iards that  the  natives  of  Mexico  would  ever  again 
wish  or  need  to  govern  themselves.     A  distorted  re- 


r 


\ 


\ 


Spanish  Ideals.  137 

ligious  conception  but  accentuated  the  domineering 
nationalism  which  made  the  conquistadores  indiffer- 
ent to  any  rights  of  the  Indians,  They  looked  upon 
them  as  subjects  of  the  evil  one,  to  be  reduced  by 
any  sort  of  means,  fair  or  foul,  to  allegiance  to  Christ 
and  his  vicegerent  on  earth.  As  to  their  civil  rights, 
history  contains  no  evidence  that  their  conquerors 
ever  even  thought  of  their  having  any.  So  greedy 
were  they  and  the  Spanish  sovereign  whom  they  rep- 
resented of  the  gold  of  the  New  World,  that  the  de- 
spoiling of  whole  peoples  of  their  sacred  liberty  in  the 
effort  to  seize  it  seemed  to  them  but  an  insignificant 
incident.  Sad  as  is  the  spectacle  of  the  religious 
fanaticism  of  these  invaders,  the  auri  sacra  fames, 
which,  like  the  lash  of  some  unresting,  unforgiving 
Fury,  ever  drove  them  on,  is  sadder  still.  In  a  burst 
of  cynical  confidence  one  of  the  Spanisii  leaders  on 
a  certain  occasion  explained  to  a  dignified  Indian 
chief  the  Spanish  thirst  for  gold.  "The  fact  is,"  he 
said,  "all  our  people  sufifer  from  a  dreadful  disease 
for  which  gold  is  the  only  known  remedy." 

In  these  two  elements  just  indicated — the  under- 
taking to  convert,  vi  ct  armis,  if  necessary,  all  these 
slaves  of  the  devil  to  the  service  of  his  holiness  the 
pope,  and  the  exploitation  as  enemies  of  the  Spanish 
crown  of  all  who  set  up  any  barriers,  however  slight, 
to  the  seizure  of  their  property — began  the  Spanish 
regime  in  Mexico.  Had  it  been  deliberately  calcu- 
lated to  unfit  the  inhabitants  of  that  unhappy  country 
for  exercising  at  any  futtire  period  the  privileges  and 


138  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

the  responsibilities  of  self-government,  it  could  not 
have  been  gauged  with  more  disastrous  accuracy. 
For  to  this  suppression  of  individuality  in  the  reli- 
gious and  civil  realm  was  promptly  added  the  social 
obloquy  which  could  not  but  follow.  Thus  in  all  the 
three  avenues  of  moral  expansion,  the  development 
of  the  Mexicans  was  hopelessly  crushed  and  atro- 
phied. In  the  social  fabric,  wealth  and  intellectual 
culture  asserted  their  swav.  In  civil  matters,  the 
iron  rule  of  the  despot  was  enforced  by  a  soldiery 
equipped  with  arms  and  an  organization  incompar- 
ably superior  to  any  known  to  the  Aztec  warriors. 
In  the  realm  of  spiritual  things,  the  despotism  was 
even  more  absolute  and  irresistible.  The  Indians 
believed  in  the  spirit  world  with  that  direct  and  un- 
questioning faith  common  to  childlike  nations.  Of 
the  terrors  of  that  future  state  they  entertained  not 
the  slightest  doubt.  Those  terrors  the  priests  held 
in  their  right  hands.  The  whole  life  of  the  poor  In- 
dian, from  his  first  faint  cry  to  the  moment  of  the 
death  rattle  in  his  throat,  was  weighed  down  by  the 
sense  of  this  spiritual  tyranny.  He  must  be  bap- 
tized in  unconscious  infancy,  confess,  pay  tithes, 
build  churches,  make  pilgrimages,  etc.,  all  his  life; 
and  at  the  end,  no  matter  how  diligently  he  had  kept 
the  Church's  rules,  be  shrived  in  dying,  else  all  would 
be  in  vain.  Indeed,  he  had  to  see  to  it  besides  that 
his  body  after  death  rested  in  consecrated  soil ;  for 
all  of  Avhich  he  was  offered  the  poor  boon  of  a  term 
in  purgatory ! 


The  Native  Population.  139 

As  an  accompaniment  of  these  varied  forms  of 
oppression — virtually  unconscious  oppression,  be  it 
said,  though  the  merit  of  the  qualification  is  open  to 
doubt — the  denial  of  the  right  of  the  peons  or  iridi- 
gcnas  to  intellectual  training  came  as  a  matter  of 
course.  It  was  a  question,  even,  subject  to  grave  dis- 
cussion, whether  they  had  souls.  That  they  had 
minds  fit  to  be  trained  was  considered  preposterous. 
To  distinguish  them  from  the  natives,  Spanish  and 
Creoles  were  called  gentc  dc  racon,  "people  of  rea- 
son." The  implication  was  that  the  Mexicans  were 
incapable  of  reasoning.  How  a  stupid  notion  of  this 
kind  could  persist  in  the  face  of  the  facts  of  ordi- 
nary and  constant  observation  must  be  accounted 
for  by  the  reflection  that  those  were  the  days  of  the 
deductive  philosophy.  People  explained  the  world 
by  means  of  previously  formed  conclusions,  instead 
of  formulating  the  conclusions  themselves  by  observ- 
ing and  classifying  the  facts  of  life. 

In  proof  of  the  intellectual  sprightliness  of  the  na- 
tive Mexicans,  facts  indeed  abounded.  Despite  the 
enormous  advantages  of  the  invading  Spaniards,  the 
Mexicans  continued  to  hold  their  own  in  population, 
as  well  as  in  every  avenue  of  competition  where  the 
terms  were  at  all  equal.  They  intermarried  with 
their  conquerors  without  injury  to  the  stock,  and  the 
Mestizos,  or  children  of  mixed  marriages,  held  their 
own  with  the  domineering  "old  Spaniards"  quite  as 
well  as  did  the  Creoles,  that  is,  the  people  of  pure 
Spanish  blood  born  in  Mexico.    The  careful  student 


140  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

of  Mexico's  history  and  of  her  population,  while  he 
will  be  forced  to  allow  the  disastrous  consequences 
of  the  social  and  political  system  prevailing  there  for 
the  past  three  centuries,  will,  nevertheless,  discover 
to  his  satisfaction  that  comparatively  few  of  the  ills 
from  which  that  country  suffers  and  has  suffered 
are  to  be  traced  to  the  native  defects  of  the  native 
races.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  likely  to  conclude  that 
few  peoples  could  have  submitted  for  three  centuries 
to  a  despotism  so  complete  and  so  ingeniously  detri- 
mental to  national  character  and  have  emerged  so 
creditably  as  have  the  Mexicans.  The  vitality — phys- 
ically, intellectually,  and  morally — of  a  people  who 
after  this  long  enslavement  were  able  to  rise  up  and 
break  the  bonds  that  had  held  them,  and  who  through 
a  whole  century  of  stubborn  fidelity  to  liberty  have 
kept  on  with  their  disheartening  task  of  shaking  off 
successive  series  of  shackles,  is  itself  the  bow  of 
promise  for  the  future.  Surely  what  Mexico  may  yet 
have  to  undergo  before  attaining  to  her  ideal  of  a 
government  by  the  people  is  less  than  what  she  has 
already  undergone. 


CHAPTER  XV. 
Legacies  of  the  Spanish  Regime. 

At  the  risk  of  having  to  set  down  in  plain  lan- 
guage some  rather  distasteful  facts,  we  must  pro- 
ceed to  particularize  the  general  indictment  of  the 
last  chapter.  It  was  there  said  that  had  the  Spanish 
regime  in  Mexico  been  deliberately  calculated  to  pre- 
vent the  development  of  a  national  capacity  for  self- 
government,  it  could  not  have  been  more  effective 
for  the  purpose  than  it  was.  It  was  not  so  calcu- 
lated, of  course.  Such  a  contingency  as  the  prefer- 
ence by  the  ^Mexicans  of  any  sort  of  government  to 
the  "divine  right"  monarchy  of  Spain  seems  not  to 
have  occurred  to  the  political  economists  of  the  time. 
Yet  latent  in  many  of  the  political  measures  for  the 
government  of  Spain's  provinces  was  the  deep-seated 
conviction  of  the  Romish  hierarchy  that  democracies 
are  atheistical  and  irreligious.  In  those  palmy  days 
of  the  Inquisition,  the  legislation  of  the  Spanish 
kingdom  took  color  from  the  tenets  of  the  Church, 
and  many  of  the  repressive  enactments,  such  as  the 
curbing  of  free  speech,  the  prohibition  of  certain  in- 
dustries, and  the  like,  as  well  as  the  government's 
wholesale  disregard  of  its  oljligation  to  provide  for 
the  enlightenment  of  the  governed,  are  doubtless  to 
be  traced  to  this  age-long  hostility  of  the  Catholic 
Church  toward  popular  government. 

(14O 


1^2  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

That  the  completeness  with  which  the  Mexican 
people  have  been  defrauded  of  that  training  which 
they  needed  for  self-government  may  properly  ap- 
pear, let  us  see  for  a  moment  what  are  the  elements 
in  national  character  essential  to  the  success  of  pop- 
ular government.  They  are  few  and,  like  most  ele- 
ments of  human  character,  simple.  The  nation  is 
made  up  of  individuals.  As  an  aggregate  of  these 
it  can  exhibit  no  traits  which  they  do  not  possess, 
nor  any  perfection  in  essential  traits  which  is  not 
first  exemplified  in  a  majority  of  its  constituent 
atoms.  The  prime  requisites  for  the  assertion  of  na- 
tional liberty  are  that  men  shall  know  their  rights  and 
have  the  manhood  to  assert  them.  This  demands 
both  enlightenment  of  mind  and  strength  of  will. 
But  when  independence  is  accomplished  and  the  task 
of  setting  up  a  government  under  the  guardianship 
of  liberty  is  undertaken,  then  an  even  heavier  strain 
is  put  upon  mind  and  will.  Henceforward  it  is  not 
merely  the  knowledge  of  our  own  rights,  but  the  abil- 
ity to  recognize  where  they  are  limited  by  the  rights 
of  others,  that  calls  for  an  acute  and  trained  intellect. 
And  necessity  is  now  upon  the  will  not  simply  to  re- 
sist the  encroachments  of  some  tyrant  and  assert 
against  the  world  the  inalienable  rights  of  man.  That 
is  a  role  which,  if  not  easy,  is  at  least  congenial. 
But  in  a  republic  men  need  not  only  to  assert  them- 
selves but  to  restrain  themselves.  Respect  for  the 
rights  of  others  makes  constant  demands  upon  their 
power  of  self-control.  Of  the  three  necessary  steps  in 


The  Oldest  American  College.  143 

the  training  of  the  sovereign  citizen,  this  self-con- 
trol is  the  last,  the  hardest,  and  the  most  essential. 

The  training  which  the  Mexicans  under  Spanish 
rule  received  instead  of  helping  them  in  any  of  these 
essential  things,  hindered  them  in  all.  They  were 
not  instructed  that  they  might  know  what  are  the 
rights  of  men.  They  were  not  allowed  to  assert 
themselves  as  to  anything,  temporal  or  spiritual,  that 
they  might  develop  will  power  and  self-respect. 
And  most  especially,  being  kept  constantly  in  a  state 
of  childlike  tutelage,  thev  learned  little  of  the  mean- 
ing  of  self-control. 

Concerning  the  first  count  in  this  bill  of  charges  it 
is  unfortunately  possible  to  speak  with  but  too  much 
assurance.  Rome  has  never  counted  it  a  virtue  in 
people  to  know  a  great  deal,  and  though  the  Roman 
Catholic  missions  in  the  Spanish  colonies  had  as  one 
of  the  agencies  of  their  propaganda  schools  of  a 
certain  sort,  neither  they  nor  the  government  of 
which  they  were  so  nearly  a  part  took  these  enter- 
prises seriously.  The  oldest  college  on  American 
soil,  the  Colegio  de  San  Nicolas,  now  situated  in 
Morelia,  founded  about  1544,  was  in  the  beginning 
a  missionary  agency  for  the  preparation  of  Indian 
candidates  for  the  priesthood.  That  training,  in  the 
conception  of  its  founder,  and  even  more  so  as  car- 
ried on  by  those  who  took  up  his  work,  had  little 
relation  to  the  general  subject  of  the  education  of  the 
people.  Tt  was  confined  to  a  small  and  privileged 
class,  and  was,  moreover,  of  a  highly  technical  and 


144  -^  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

special  character.  This  prototype  of  American  col- 
leges was  indeed  far  too  much  a  type  of  the  sundry 
seminaries  and  monastic  schools  which  were  later 
scattered  through  New  Spain.  They  had  no  appre- 
ciable effect  in  lifting  up  and  illuminating  the  masses 
of  the  native  population.  As  has  been  already  ob- 
served, the  Spaniards,  missionaries  as  well  as  sol- 
diers and  civil  rulers,  doubted  whether  the  Indian 
had  sufhcient  of  either  soul  or  brains  to  become  a 
civilized  man.  He  was  taught  that  it  was  a  great 
concession  when  he  was  admitted  to  baptism  and 
declared  a  "Christian."  Otherwise,  he  would  have 
remained  an  "animal." 

As  the  centuries  crept  by,  the  zeal  and  the  unself- 
ish enthusiasm  of  the  early  missionary  days  died 
out.  The  people  were  virtually  all  brought  into  al- 
legiance to  the  Church.  The  schools,  as  a  mission- 
ary agency,  were  no  longer  needed.  That  they  were 
desirable  for  any  other  purpose  seems  to  have  oc- 
curred to  nobody.  The  people  vi^ere  left  in  igno- 
rance, and,  since  they  knew  no  other  possibility,  it 
was  mostly  contented  ignorance.  How  sluggishly 
this  great  mass  awoke  to  the  stimulation  of  the  ideas 
of  freedom,  of  independence  from  the  oppression  that 
had  weighed  upon  Mexico  for  so  long,  will  be  re- 
called by  those  who  have  followed  even  in  brief  out- 
line the  story  of  Hidalgo's  uprising.  It  is  but  too 
evident,  even  to  the  casual  student,  that  had  not  the 
movement  for  independence  from  Spain  sprang  up 
in  Mexico  at  a  time  when  the  Spanish  government 


The  Church  and  Freedom  of  Thought.      145 

was  helpless, — being  during  no  small  part  of  the 
struggle  virtually  nonexistent, — it  could  never  have 
attained  to  any  measure  of  success.  That  other  and 
similar  and  probably  successful  movements  would 
have  followed  is  quite  certain.  But  it  was  only  the 
nerveless  state  of  Spain  which  gave  opportunity  at 
the  time  Hidalgo  began  his  agitation  for  that  slow 
and  long-continued  propaganda  that  at  last  took  hold 
upon  the  untrained  thought  of  Mexico's  native  pop- 
ulation. 

It  was  not  merely  in  the  failure  to  provide  schools 
and  to  intervene  directly  in  the  mental  training  of 
the  Mexican  native  races  that  Spain  sinned  against 
their  intellectual  development.  That  development 
was  hindered,  was  indeed  rendered  virtually  impos- 
sible, by  the  whole  atmosphere  in  which  these  races 
had  their  first  contact  with  European  civilization. 
They  were  not  allowed  to  think  for  themselves  in  re- 
gard to  any  of  life's  interests.  The  Church  declined 
to  permit  it  in  religious  things,  because  to  think  at 
all  exposed  them  to  the  danger  of  thinking  wrongly. 
Orthodoxy  was  held  to  be  more  desirable  than  intel- 
ligence. As  the  ecclesiastical  system  gradually  de- 
parted from  that  primitive  purity  of  purpose  and  of 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  people  which  had 
marked  the  early  missionaries,  it  grew  into  an  elab- 
orate scheme  of  prerogatives  and  dignities  belong- 
ing to  the  priests  and  bishops,  concerning  which  these 
dignitaries  were  excessively  jealous  and  watchful. 
The  due  subjection  of  the  people  was  a  matter  of  first 
10 


146  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

importance,  and  the  obedience  and  acquiescence 
which  were  exacted  of  them  left  nothing  to  the 
chance  of  individual  initiative. 

Scarcely  less  autocratic  were  the  social  and  civil 
exactions.  On  every  hand  the  Indian  was  made  to 
feel  himself  a  nobody.  He  was  "commended"  to  the 
care  of  "Christian"  miners  and  land-owners  in  great 
herds,  in  order  that  he  might  be  trained  in  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  His  labor,  once  his  own,  was  now  by 
some  hocus-pocus  made  to  enrich  the  conquistador. 
Innumerable  petty  social  and  civil  exactions  pressed 
upon  him.  He  could  not  ride  horseback.  He  was 
not  allowed  to  dress  in  the  same  fashion  as  the  Span- 
iards, nor  to  carry  arms.  The  estimate  put  upon 
him  is  well  defined  by  the  rule  that  in  a  court  of  law 
the  word  of  one  Spaniard  was  of  equal  weight  with 
that  of  six  Indians. 

The  naturally  amiable  and  submissive  temper  of 
the  Mexican  people  was  by  such  treatment  gradu- 
ally degraded  to  a  servile  and  helpless  attitude  very 
far  removed  from  that  independence  of  spirit  and 
sprightliness  of  mind  essential  to  freemen.  Indeed, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  many  of  the  natives  were  re- 
duced to  slavery,  and  only  the  fierce  denunciations  of 
a  few  warm-hearted  priests,  with  the  intervention, 
from  time  to  time,  of  a  philanthropic  viceroy,  kept 
the  humane  provisions  of  the  Council  of  the  Indias 
concerning  human  slavery  from  being  abused  even 
more  than  they  were.  The  resistance  offered  by  the 
poor  Indians  themselves  was  insignificant.    The  one 


Mexico  Has  Done  W^ell.  147 

good  thing  which  their  new  rehgion  did  for  them 
was  to  give  them  a  definite  doctrine  of,  and  an  abid- 
ing faith  in,  God.  This  faith  was  accompanied,  un- 
fortunately, by  a  sort  of  cheerful  fatalism  altogeth- 
er congenial  to  their  temper  and  condition.  What- 
ever ills  came  to  them  they  were  in  the  habit  of  ac- 
cepting with  a  shrug  and  a  smile, — Es  la  voluntad  de 
Dios!  "It  is  the  will  of  God."  The  phrase  was  ap- 
plied many  times  to  situations  in  which  its  theolog- 
ical accuracy  is  not  so  evident  as  its  devoutness  of 
spirit. 

The  student  of  Mexican  national  development  as 
affected  by  national  character  will  often  be  at  a  loss 
whether  to  attribute  certain  aspects  of  it  to  native 
and  more  or  less  ineradicable  traits  or  to  the  in- 
fluence of  this  long  tutelage  under  Spain.  The  peo- 
ple display  no  great  aptitude  for  self-government. 
For  this  they  have  been  much  criticized.  A  sym- 
pathetic consideration  of  the  powerful  influences 
from  without  that  have  molded  them  to  a  character 
as  far  as  possible  removed  from  the  ideal  of  freemen 
will  serve  to  change  much  of  that  criticism  to  a  kind- 
lier estimate.  When  to  the  duress  under  which  they 
received  foreign  influences  is  added  the  repressive 
and  enervating  character  of  those  influences,  the 
wonder  is  not  that  since  being  thrown  upon  their 
own  resources  they  should  have  done  so  ill,  but  that 
they  have  done  so  well. 

When  all  has  been  said  that  the  fairest  estimate 
of  the  facts  will  warrant,  it  remains  true  that  the 


148  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

Mexicans,  previous  to  the  advent  of  the  Europeans, 
had  taken  only  the  first  step  toward  the  development 
of  a  national  civilization.  They  were  essentially  a 
primitive  and  savage  people.  Excepting  the  arts  of 
a  rude  sort  of  warfare,  and  some  of  the  rudiments  of 
civil  government,  largely  still  upon  the  tribal  basis, 
they  had  everything  to  learn.  It  is  only  within  re- 
cent times  that  the  duty  of  nations  to  each  other  has 
begun  to  take  even  a  slightly  altruistic  tinge.  Can- 
ada and  Australia  have  grown  into  self-govern- 
ing nations  as  English  colonies,  and  right-minded 
governors  of  India  are  striving, — against  enormous 
odds,  no  doubt, — to  bring  that  old  and  strange  con- 
geries of  peoples  up  to  the  conception  of  some  sort 
of  autonomy.  Cuba  has  been  set  up  for  herself  by 
the  United  States;  and  any  real  evidence  that  it 
would  be  worth  while  would  promptly  bring  a  simi- 
lar provision  to  one  or  all  of  the  Philippine  Islands. 
But  three  hundred  years  ago  lands  of  the  New  World 
were  not  colonized  for  the  good  of  those  lands  them- 
selves, but  for  the  glory  and  enrichment  of  the  col- 
onizers. Spain  set  no  standard  of  possible  local  au- 
tonomy before  her  in  dealing  with  Mexico.  The 
conception  was  utterly  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the 
time,  and  even  more  to  the  Spanish  temper.  The 
measures  adopted  were  all  primarily  concerned  with 
the  mother  country  and  with  those  who  represented 
her  in  this  New  World.  If  they  were  humane  and 
Christian  enactments,  that  proceeded  wholly  from 
the  Royal  Council's  conception  of  what  was  decent 


The  Inquisition.  149 

and  becoming  to  Christian  Spain,  not  from  any  pur- 
pose to  conciliate  or  to  train  the  people  lately  brought 
into  subjection  to  her  arms. 

The  charge  of  having  emasculated  the  national 
character  of  the  Mexican  people  does  not  lie  simply 
against  the  temper  and  mode  of  procedure  of  the 
Spanish  government.  In  these  that  government  but 
reflected  the  spirit  of  the  time.  The  real  onus  of  the 
indictment  is  upon  those  fundamental  religious  and 
social  principles  upon  which  the  civilization  of  Spain 
itself  had  been  reared,  and  which,  during  the  cen- 
turies in  which  Mexico  was  losing  so  much,  united 
with  Mexican  gold  to  disintegrate  and  wreck  the 
Spanish  civilization  also.  It  was  the  subserviency 
of  civil  affairs  to  the  dominating  spirit  of  the  eccle- 
siasticism  of  southern  Europe  which  prepared  the 
way  for  that  most  disastrous  culmination  of  obscur- 
antism known  to  history,  the  Spanish  Inquisition. 

The  Inquisition  was  the  apotheosis  of  autocratic 
tyranny.  It  not  only  attacked  the  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  ci\'il  liberty,  to  freedom  of  person  in  the 
material  concerns  of  life,  but  carried  the  havoc  of  an 
unfeeling  tyranny  into  the  still  more  sacred  realm  of 
the  spirit.  It  is  bad  enough  to  hold  that  a  man  can- 
not do  as  he  would;  it  is  a  hundred-fold  worse  to 
deny  him  the  privilege  of  thinking  as  he  would. 
The  ravages  of  the  Inquisition  among  the  submis- 
sive and  meek-spirited  Mexicans  were,  if  possible, 
more  terrifying  than  in  Spain  itself.  That  there 
were  still,  after  three  centuries,  those  who  dared  defy 


150  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

it  and  think  and  plan  for  freedom,  is  one  of  those 
miracles  of  history  for  which  the  student  will  find  he 
must  be  constantly  prepared.  To  quench  the  love  of 
liberty  in  the  human  heart  is  an  undertaking  so  hope- 
less that  one  must  fain  trust  that  soon  it  will  be  for- 
ever given  over.  The  record  of  government  regard- 
less of  the  wishes  of  the  governed  has  been  already 
long  enough  drawn  out.  It  will  be  well  if  in  the 
future  the  function  and  powers  of  government  be 
otherwise  employed. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Republic  Triumphant. 

We  have  paused  for  these  general  considerations 
in  order  that  there  might  be  a  more  sympathetic  un- 
derstanding upon  the  part  of  the  reader  of  the  prob- 
lem Mexico  faced  when  in  1867,  the  French  inter- 
vention having  been  brought  to  its  end,  she  again 
undertook  the  task  of  self-government.  The  ob- 
stacles to  a  democracy  by  which  she  had  been  dur- 
ing fifty  years  repeatedly  thwarted  were  now,  in 
part,  at  least,  eliminated.  The  principal  of  these 
were  outside  interference,  a  monarchical  tendency 
at  home,  ambitious  military  leaders,  and  a  med- 
dlesome hierarchy,  doubly  powerful  through  its 
immense  wealth.  The  first  and  second  of  these  were 
now  efifectually  disposed  of.  With  the  blood-stained 
body  of  Maximilian  were  buried  the  hopes  of  the 
monarchists  at  home.  His  tomb  is  also  a  stumbling- 
block  to  European  princes  which  seems  likely  to 
continue  to  cool  any  ardor  they  might  otherwise  de- 
velop for  attempting  to  set  up  an  American  king- 
dom. Opposition  from  the  two  remaining  foes  was 
checked  but  not  ended.  The  clergy,  stripped  of  their 
wealth  and  to  a  very  large  extent  also  of  their  pres- 
tige, remained  nevertheless  a  potent  influence  in  the 
life  of  the  nation.  As  for  ambitious  and  unscrupu- 
lous soldiers,  men  who  prefer  selfish   aggrandize- 

{^50 


152  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

ment  to  the  welfare  of  their  country,  it  was,  unfortu- 
nately, too  much  to  expect  that  a  type  which  had  so 
long  been  conspicuous  in  Mexico's  history  would 
suddenly  and  finally  disappear. 

It  was  these  restive  military  leaders  who  filled 
the  land  with  turmoil  during  the  four  remaining 
years  of  the  life  of  President  Juarez.  As  soon  as 
possible  after  gaining  control  in  1867  of  the  entire 
country,  he  issued  a  proclamation  calling  for  a  gen- 
eral election.  Instead  of  limiting  this  to  the  ordi- 
nary choice  under  the  constitution  of  a  president,  a 
chief  justice,  and  the  members  of  the  national  con- 
gress, he  thought  it  an  excellent  time  for  the  people 
to  pass  also  upon  certain  constitutional  changes 
which  seemed  to  him  desirable, — provision  for  a  sen- 
ate, the  conceding  of  a  veto  power  to  the  president, 
etc.  Since  the  constitution  itself  provided  the  prop- 
er order  for  its  own  amendment,  many  affected  to 
see  in  this  proclamation  a  disposition  upon  the  part 
of  Juarez  to  override  it.  The  people,  though  for  the 
most  part  they  refused  to  vote  on  these  new  pro- 
posals, elected  a  congress  favorable  to  Juarez,  by 
whom  he  was  in  due  course  declared  to  be  the  con- 
stitutionally elected  president.  Sebastian  Lerdo  de 
Tejada  was  made  president  of  the  supreme  court, 
an  oflfice  carrying  with  it  the  succession  to  the  pres- 
idency in  the  event  of  the  president's  death. 

During  the  intervening  months  Juarez  had  taken 
occasion  to  proclaim  a  general  amnesty  for  all  the 
partisans  of  the  government  of  Maximilian,  though 


Administration  of  Juarez.  153 

without  conferring  upon  them  the  right  to  bear  arms 
or  hold  office.  Even  this  generous  treatment,  how- 
ever, did  not  satisfy  them.  Instead  of  being  thank- 
ful that  they  had  not  been  executed  or  banished  as 
traitors,  they  at  once  began  an  agitation  against 
Juarez  because  he  was  so  severe.  Lerdo,  who  saw 
how  easily  he  had  been  advanced  to  the  position 
next  in  prestige  to  the  presidency,  gradually  drew 
away  from  Juarez,  whom  he  had  hitherto  supported 
with  great  loyalty,  and  began  to  form,  especially 
among  the  opposition  members  in  congress,  a  new 
party  of  "Lerdistas." 

But  it  was,  as  has  already  been  said,  the  military 
which  gave  most  trouble.  Foreseeing  this,  Juarez 
had,  among  the  first  of  his  official  acts  after  obtain- 
ing control,  reorganized  and  reduced  the  army.  Its 
total  strength  was  placed  at  twenty  thousand  men 
organized  into  four  divisions,  commanded  respect- 
ively after  the  reorganization  by  Generals  Regules, 
Porfirio  Diaz,  Escobedo,  and  Corona.  The  discre- 
tionary powers  hitherto  committed  to  generals  as  to 
recruiting  and  campaigning  were  now  withdrawn, 
and  all  were  put  under  the  immediate  orders  of  the 
president  as  commander  in  chief.  This  wholesale 
reduction  of  the  army  of  course  left  many  generals 
and  colonels  without  a  command.  Besides,  the  men 
who,  scattered  through  all  sections  of  the  country 
and  largely  independent  of  one  another,  had  with 
most  admirable  harmony  presented  a  united  front 
to  the  foreign  invader,  were  unable  now  to  agree 


154  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

among  themselves,  the  pressure  from  without  hav- 
ing^ been  withdrawn. 

Juarez  was  not  himself  a  soldier.  But  he  was  a 
man  of  the  most  extraordinary  personal  valor.  Time 
and  again  he  saw  not  merely  his  government  im- 
periled and  all  that  he  held  dear  in  danger  of  an- 
nihilation, but  his  own  life  even  hanging  in  the  bal- 
ance. It  was  impossible  to  break  in  upon  his  per- 
sonal serenity.  His  calmness  and  decision  in  the 
most  critical  and  urgent  situations  bound  to  him 
in  an  extraordinary  way  the  military  leaders  upon 
whom  he  was  forced  to  lean  for  support;  and  the 
common  soldiers,  and  even  the  civilians,  who  were 
once  and  again  called  upon  to  protect  him  from  per- 
sonal violence  never  hesitated  to  do  so,  though  it 
was  often  at  the  price  of  their  own  lives. 

From  1868  to  1872  the  uproar  was  continuous. 
Regiments,  brigades,  isolated  squads,  as  the  case 
might  be,  put  forward  the  claims  of  some  favorite 
leader  who  had  "proclaimed"  against  the  govern- 
ment, and  had,  one  after  the  other,  to  be  met  and 
defeated.  Whole  states  declared  against  certain 
acts  of  the  federal  congress  or  of  the  executive,  and 
had  to  be  coaxed  or  cudgeled  into  adhesion.  In  the 
congress  itself,  the  conservatives,  shifting  to  this 
new  field  the  opposition  which  had  so  long  tried 
in  vain  the  arbitrament  of  arms,  kept  a  clamor- 
ous minority  hanging  upon  the  skirts  of  the  presi- 
dent and  clogging  as  far  as  it  could  every  advance 
step. 


Juarez  Reelected.  155 

But  Juarez  was  used  to  turmoil.  To  the  noisy- 
opposition  in  congress  and  to  every  new  insurgent 
in  arms  he  presented  the  same  cahn,  imperturbable 
front.  Alert,  ready,  puissant,  he  handled  troops,  di- 
rected campaigns,  watched  the  clericals,  kept  peace 
in  his  cabinet,  showing  himself  by  every  token  the 
man  of  destiny. 

The  election  of  1871  came  on.  A  feeling  was 
general  that  Juarez  ought  to  give  place  to  some 
other.  To  this  he  would  not  agree.  Whether  he 
was  the  victim  of  an  old  man's  jealous  ambition,  or 
honestly  thought  it  was  unsafe  for  the  country  to 
risk  a  change  at  that  time,  will  never  be  known. 
His  friends  took  one  view,  his  enemies  another. 
Even  his  friends  admit  that  this  was  the  greatest 
mistake  of  his  life.  Both  Lerdo  and  Diaz  received 
a  heavy  vote  for  the  presidency,  but  Juarez  was 
elected.  Lerdo,  still  at  the  head  of  the  supreme 
court,  took  occasion  of  the  general  discontent  to  in- 
crease his  party  in  congress,  even  holding  out  a 
friendly  hand  to  the  embittered  conservatives.  Gen- 
eral Diaz,  who  some  time  before  had  resigned  his 
place  in  the  army  and  retired  to  private  life,  vexed 
at  this  continuance  in  power  of  a  chief  who  seemed 
indisposed  to  give  way  to  other  ambitious  and  able 
men,  issued  his  Plan  de  la  Noria.  In  this  he  pro- 
posed to  set  aside  the  government  and  the  consti- 
tution and  call  a  general  assembly  to  reorganize  the 
whole  basis  of  civil  government.  The  document 
does  him  no  great  credit,  nor  did  the  rather  guer- 


156  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

rilla-like  campaign  in  which  he  with  a  few  followers 
supported  it. 

The  fiercest  of  all  the  outbursts,  however,  and  one 
that  for  a  moment  threatened  the  most  serious  con- 
sequences, took  place  in  Mexico  City.  October  i, 
1871,  just  a  month  after  the  election  of  the  presi- 
dent for  another  term,  but  before  his  inauguration, 
like  a  bolt  from  the  clear  sky  broke  forth  the  insur- 
rection of  the  garrison  at  the  capital.  The  regiment 
having  charge  of  the  police  headquarters  murdered 
their  colonel  and  released  all  the  prisoners.  In  the 
principal  barracks  near  by,  the  whole  force  was  in- 
volved. Had  a  really  able  leader  been  found,  the  re- 
sult might  have  been  disastrous.  But  before  night 
Juarez  had  the  revolutionists  besieged  in  the  bar- 
racks where  the  disturbance  began,  which  that 
night  were  stormed  by  his  faithful  and  valiant  gen- 
eral, Rocha,  and  the  movement  was  crushed.  A 
number  of  the  leaders,  and  not  a  few  of  the  sol- 
diers, were  summarily  condemned  by  court-martial 
and  shot.  This  action  produced  an  exciting  episode 
in  congress  when  Zamacona,  the  most  active  of  the 
supporters  of  Diaz — who  were  beginning  to  call 
themselves  "Porfiristas" — bitterly  criticised  the  gov- 
ernment, for  which  the  able  patriot-poet,  Guillermo 
Prieto,  had  the  unenviable  task  of  being  spokesman. 

With  his  usual  vigor  and  success  Juarez  set  him- 
self the  winter  and  spring  succeeding  to  bring  order 
out  of  what  had  threatened  to  become  chaos,  and  by 
the  summer  of   1872  was  again  firmly  intrenched 


Death  of  Juarez — Character.  157 

in  his  position  as  constitutional  president.  His 
courage  and  coolness,  as  well  as  his  respect  for  law 
and  order,  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  he  made  no 
effort  to  displace  Lerdo,  though  aware  that  he  was 
constantly  intriguing  with  the  enemies  of  the  gov- 
ernment. July  18,  1872,  Juarez  died,  somewhat 
suddenly  and  from  a  disease  of  the  heart.  To  such 
characterization  of  him  as  may  be  gathered  from  the 
preceding  pages  it  will  perhaps  be  well  to  add  here 
the  brief  estimate  left  by  his  friend  and  associate, 
Jose  Maria  Iglesias,  himself  an  able  and  incor- 
ruptible patriot :  "Although  Don  Benito  Juarez  was 
a  man  of  exceptional  capacity  and  not  wanting  in 
intellectual  training,  it  may  be  said  that  neither  his 
native  intelligence  nor  his  learning  was  of  the  first 
rank.  His  real  merit — which  may  justly  be  de- 
clared exceptional — is  to  be  traced  to  his  extraor- 
dinary traits  of  character.  His  firmness  in  matters 
of  principle  was  immovable.  To  his  principles  he 
held  at  any  cost  of  effort  or  sacrifice.  Adversity 
could  not  vanquish,  prosperity  could  not  spoil  him. 
So  extraordinary  was  his  passive  personal  courage 
that  to  many  it  seemed  mere  insensibility.  So  hon- 
est did  he  prove  himself  to  be  that  every  opportunity 
of  personal  enrichment  offered  by  his  long  career 
was  carelessly  put  aside.  If  it  is  to  be  admitted 
that  he  clung  a  little  too  persistently  to  his  place  of 
power,  it  is  also  to  be  added  that  he  was  ever  gov- 
erned by  patriotic  motives." 

Lerdo,  by  virtue  of  his  position  as  president  of 


158  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

the  supreme  court  and  in  conformity  to  the  consti- 
tution, assumed  the  presidential  office.  As  soon  as 
cong'ress  assembled  in  the  autumn  he  was  confirmed 
therein,  virtually  without  opposition.  During  his 
term  ad  interim  he  had  published  a  proclamation  of 
amnesty  for  the  imperialists,  removing  most  of  the 
disabilities  under  which  Juarez  had  resolutely  kept 
them,  but  not  yet  granting  all  that  they  demanded. 
The  partisans  of  Diaz  were  quiescent  for  the  time 
being,  since  they  had  been  acting  with  the  Lerdistas 
against  the  party  of  Juarez,  and  were  not  ready  at 
a  moment's  notice  to  break  the  friendly  bonds  thus 
formed. 

Lerdo,  a  sprightly,  eloquent,  handsome,  and  able 
man,  had  a  comparatively  quiet  term.  Only  one 
serious  military  episode  disturbed  the  country's 
peace.  Don  Manuel  Lozada,  an  ignorant  but  able 
Indian  of  the  territory  of  Tepic,  who  had  favored 
the  intervention  and  been  lauded  by  Maximilian  and 
the  French  emperor,  kept  still  in  his  mountain  fast- 
ness, a  sort  of  Cave  of  Adullam.  where  his  renegade 
force  was  constantly  recruited.  General  Ramon 
Corona,  in  command  at  Guadalajara,  had  long  since 
begged  to  be  allowed  to  crush  this  nest  of  traitors, 
but  the  government  refused.  Early  in  1873  they 
swept  down  upon  him  at  a  time  when  his  forces 
had  been  greatly  depleted,  and  only  by  the  most 
heroic  fighting  at  a  disadvantage  in  numbers  of  four 
to  one,  did  he  defeat  and  scatter  these  dreaded  ban- 
ditti.    He  was  thereafter  rightly  looked  upon  as  the 


Reform  Laws  Confirmed.  159 

savior  of  Guadalajara,  the  devastation  of  which  city 
would  inevitably  have  followed  his  defeat. 

In  civil  matters  the  most  significant  event  of  the 
term  of  Lerdo  was  the  act  of  September  25,  1874, 
finally  approved  and  promulgated  in  December  of 
that  year,  elevating  to  the  rank  of  organic  consti- 
tutional law-  the  Leyes  dc  Reforma,  especially  those 
proclaiming  the  separation  between  Church  and 
State,  the  liberty  of  worship,  that  matrimony  is  a 
civil  contract,  that  churches  cannot  hold  real  estate, 
that  the  religious  oath  in  courts  shall  be  substituted 
by  a  protest  or  promise  to  speak  the  truth,  and  that 
convents  and  monasteries  are  illegal.  This  set  the 
final  seal  upon  the  confiscation  of  the  ecclesiastical 
property,  a  step  which  even  Maximilian,  with  all 
his  devotion  to  the  Church,  had  approved  by  not  ab- 
rogating the  contracts  for  the  sale  of  this  property 
made  under  the  original  laAv  of  Juarez. 

One  term  was  not  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  ambi- 
tion of  Lerdo,  and  though,  when  the  case  of  Juarez 
was  under  consideration,  he  had  opposed  the  practice 
of  allowing  a  president  to  be  reelected  at  the  end  of 
his  period  in  office,  he  now.  as  his  own  quadrennium 
drew  to  a  close,  began  to  seek  to  secure  the  place  for 
himself  during  another.  He  was  ambitious,  not 
over-scrupulous,  and  especially  averse  to  taking  ad- 
vice. His  election  was  forced  through  by  the  open 
use  of  federal  power,  and  duly  proclaimed  by  con- 
gress, October  26.  1 876.  The  storm  then  burst,  and 
with  tremendous  violence. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
PoRFiRio  Diaz  and  the  Arts  of  Peace. 

The  events  which  in  1876  made  General  Diaz  in- 
stead of  Sebastian  Lerdo  de  Tejada,  who  had  served 
part  of  the  previous  term  and  been  reelected,  chief 
mag-istrate  of  Mexico  were  both  dramatic  and  pain- 
ful. After  the  election  that  autumn  the  situation 
changed  with  lightning-like  rapidity.  Jndge  Jose 
Maria  Iglesias,  an  honest  and  high-minded  man, 
had  been  reelected  chief  justice  of  the  supreme  court. 
Without  having  before  taken  sides  openly  between 
the  Lerdistas  and  the  Porfiristas,  though  supposed- 
ly favorable  to  the  president,  under  whom  he  had 
just  served  three  years,  Iglesias  was  so  outraged  by 
the  manner  in  which  Lerdo  had  forced  his  own 
reelection  that  he  declared  it  fraudulent.  Retiring 
to  Salamanca,  in  the  wealthy  state  of  Guanajuato, 
whose  governor  favored  him,  he  proclaimed  himself 
to  be,  under  the  constitution,  the  legitimate  pres- 
ident and  proceeded  to  organize  his  cabinet. 

More  ominous  still  was  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment which  had  broken  out  early  in  the  year  under 
General  Hernandez,  so  soon  in  fact  as  Lerdo  had 
announced  his  intention  of  again  becoming  a  can- 
didate for  the  presidency.  This  pronunciamiento 
against  him   is  known  as   the   Plan   of   Tuxtepec. 

General  Diaz  later  took  it  up  and  with  certain  mod- 
(160) 


General  Diaz  Becomes  President.  i6i 

ifications  made  it  his  own.  He  was  at  the  time  the 
ablest  and  most  popular  military  leader  in  the  coun- 
try. The  collisions  between  his  forces  and  those  of 
the  Lerdist  party  were  frequent  and  bloody.  He 
was  rapidly  gaining  on  the  president,  who  was  not 
himself  a  soldier,  when  the  defection  of  Iglesias 
cut  the  ground  completely  from  under  Lerdo. 
Vexed  at  Iglesias,  and  despairing  of  holding  his 
own  against  Diaz,  he  quietly  slipped  out  of  Mex- 
ico by  night,  leaving  the  capital  in  possession  of  the 
Porfiristas  who  had  just  gained  a  decisive  victory 
over  the  government  troops.  The  exiled  president 
took  refuge  in  New  York,  where  he  remained  till 
his  death,  some  fourteen  years  later. 

Diaz  promptly  moved  against  Iglesias,  but  the 
latter,  though  stubborn  in  his  opinion  that  he  was 
the  legally  constituted  president,  had  not  sufficient 
troops  to  undertake  a  campaign.  He  therefore, — 
after  a  personal  interview  with  General  Diaz,  as 
some  insist, — quietly  withdrew  to  the  Pacific  coast 
and  took  ship  for  San  Francisco. 

The  field  was  now  clear.  General  Diaz  ordered 
an  election  for  president,  as  both  president  and  chief 
justice  were  gone,  and  was  himself  elected  without 
oposition,  taking  charge  of  the  government  May  5, 
1877,  for  the  presidential  term  to  end  November  30, 
1880.  Succeeded  when  that  time  came  by  Gen- 
eral Manuel  Gonzales. — the  first  time,  by  the  way, 
that  the  presidency  had  ever  passed  peacefully  from 
one  man  to  another, — he  was  again  elected  in  1884, 
I  r 


i62  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

as  he  has  been  at  each  election  since  that  date.  This 
brief  statement  completes  the  story  of  Mexico's  po- 
litical changes. 

But  why  is  it,  the  reader  will  be  asking,  that 
President  Diaz  has  been  able  to  keep  the  peace  when 
all  others  before  him  had  failed?  The  answer  to 
that  is  necessarily  manifold,  yet  the  mystery  is  less 
than  it  seems.  The  explanation  is  to  be  found  first 
in  the  man  himself,  and  secondly  in  the  measures 
which,  being  what  he  is,  he  has  adopted.  One  or 
two  fortuitous  conditions  from  without  must  also  be 
taken  into  the  account.  Of  these  the  most  essential 
has  already  been  discussed  at  some  length.  When 
the  Church  and  its  orders  were  deprived  of  their 
wealth,  then  the  most  fruitful  source  of  armed  re- 
bellions was  dried  up.  Without  the  work  of  Juarez 
that  of  Diaz  would  have  been  impossible.  The  prin- 
ciples of  the  constitution,  after  the  way  for  them 
was  cleared  by  the  Leyes  dc  Reforma,  have  proved 
a  solid  foundation  for  a  peaceful  administration 
which  has  continued  now  for  nearly  thirty  years. 

To  this  favoring  circumstance  are  to  be  added  a 
few  others.  One  of  these  is  that  the  people  were 
exceedingly  weary  of  war.  It  had  devastated  the 
country,  demoralized  society,  annihilated  commerce, 
choked  agriculture,  made  uncertain  the  tenure  of 
life  and  property,  and  sent  to  a  bloody  grave  the 
flower  of  the  nation's  youth.  The  common  people, 
caring  little  for  the  elective  franchise,  and  knowing 
nothing   of   governmental    questions,    were   at    last 


Outline  of  Diaz's  Life.  163 

willing  that  anybody  who  wished  should  be  presi- 
dent so  long  as  they  were  left  in  peace. 

Again — and  this  means  more  than  would  appear 
— the  military  competitors  of  Diaz  were  nearly  all 
older  than  he.  They  rapidly  died  off.  The  probabil- 
ity of  a  successful  revolution  against  a  general  of 
his  experience  and  tried  skill  thus  soon  became  in- 
finitesimal. Not  many  were  foolish  enough  to  try 
the  experiment. 

Finally — though  for  this  the  president  himself 
was  largely  responsible — the  advent  of  the  railways 
during  the  early  eighties  made  it  possible  for  the 
government  to  handle  its  troops  with  a  speed  and 
efficiency  which,  a  thing  never  before  possible, 
nipped  revolutions  in  the  bud. 

Turning  from  external  and  largely  adventitious 
conditions  to  the  man,  we  shall  find  in  President 
Diaz  himself  the  best  explanation  at  once  of  his 
success  and  of  the  measures  by  which  he  has  insured 
it.  First  of  all.  he  is  a  popular  hero.  A  native  (born 
September  15,  1830)  of  the  patriotic  state  of  Oax- 
aca,  which  has  given  to  the  republic  both  Juarez 
and  Diaz,  the  persecution  of  the  jealous  and  ever- 
suspicious  Santa  Anna  turned  him  from  his  chosen 
pursuit  of  the  law  into  a  soldier's  life  while  he  was 
yet  a  young  man  (1853).  From  then  till  the  end 
of  the  French  intervention,  his  career  was  one  of  ad- 
venture. Active,  athletic,  a  horseman,  a  swimmer, 
a  rifle  shot,  he  is  still  at  seventy-four  a  vigorous  and 
handsome  man.     His  numerous  thrilling  adventures 


164  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

and  his  fearless  handling  of  his  troops  have  made 
his  personal  valor  a  matter  of  common  knowledge, 
while  his  generosity  to  opponents  and  his  loyalty  to 
friends,  his  devotion  to  good  government,  and,  last 
of  all,  his  unbroken  success,  have  made  the  Mexi- 
can people  look  up  to  him  with  confidence  and  admi- 
ration. 

He  has  accomplished  that  transition  which  has 
been  the  despair  of  many  of  the  world's  great  cap- 
tains. After  success  as  a  soldier  he  has  proved  him- 
self also  a  great  civil  ruler.  The  men  who  have  done 
this  can  almost  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one 
hand.  Those  who  have  failed  are  far  more  numer- 
ous. It  must  be  allowed  that  he  has  been  spared 
one  crucial  test.  The  scripture  which  warns  the 
soldier  to  do  violence  to  no  man,  and  to  be  content 
with  his  wages,  touches  the  vices  which  are  surest 
to  result  from  the  military  life — harshness  and  av- 
arice. The  administration  of  President  Diaz  has 
been  autocratic  and  stern.  It  is  not  worth  while  to 
deny  this.  Measures  have  been  carried  out  by  him 
which,  as  well  as  the  manner  of  their  administra- 
tion, would  have  been  deeply  resented  in  some  coun- 
tries. His  reply  to  objections  concerning  them  is 
that  he  knows  his  own  people.  Happily  this  is  true. 
They  have  been  too  long  accustomed  to  autocratic 
rule  to  resent  it  now.  The  president  has,  therefore, 
not  had  to  change  radically  the  principles  upon 
which  he  exacted  discipline  while  a  soldier.  He  is 
still,  essentially,  a  military  ruler. 


His  Conciliatory  Policy.  165 

In  the  matter  of  avarice  he  is,  fortunately,  con- 
stituted much  as  was  Juarez.  No  doubt  he  has 
laid  aside  some  wealth  during  these  thirty  years; 
but  he  has  never  cared  enough  for  money  to  cause 
serious  offense.  He  is  not  ostentatious ;  he  is  not 
greedy.  The  country  was  on  the  verge  of  anarchy 
when  the  administration  of  President  Gonzales  came 
to  a  close  in  1884,  and  friends  and  enemies  alike 
were  clamoring  for  "Don  Porfirio."  The  principal 
reason  was  that  the  bluff  old  soldier,  who  had  just 
taken  his  turn  in  the  chief  magistrac)^,  had  devel- 
oped an  enthusiasm  in  money  getting  that  scandal- 
ized the  whole  country  while  bringing  into  sharp  re- 
lief the  self-restraint  of  Diaz. 

The  president  of  Mexico  is  also  a  broad-minded 
man.  Men  who  had  opposed  him  in  the  days  of  his 
disputes  with  Juarez  and  with  Lerdo, — "Juaristas" 
and  "Lerdistas," — were  nevertheless  given  places 
under  his  government,  some  even  in  the  army,  com- 
mensurate with  their  ability.  Their  tenure  was,  of 
course,  dependent  on  their  loyalty  to  their  new  chief. 
Others,  army  officers  especially,  were  retired  on  full 
pay.  A  few  ventured  on  "pernicious  activity'' 
against  the  government,  and  were  promptly  exiled 
or  dealt  with  even  more  severely.  But  many  of  his 
former  enemies  became  his  stanch  friends  and  sup- 
porters. A  conspicuous  case  was  that  of  Sr.  Romero 
Rubio,  who  was  in  1876  a  mo.st  active  Lerdista. 
Ten  years  later  he  was  a  prominent  member  of  the 


i66  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

cabinet  of  President  Diaz,  who  had  meantime  mar- 
ried his  daughter ! 

No  Httle  of  breadth  has  been  displayed  in  his  deal- 
ing- with  the  question  of  foreigners  in  Mexico.  Pop- 
ular prejudice  against  them  had  long  been  intense. 
The  country  was  extremely  provincial.  The  Cath- 
olic Church  created  sentiment  against  the  incoming 
of  influences  which  might  disturb  its  unquestioned 
sway.  The  war  with  the  United  States  and  the  con- 
sequent loss  of  territory  made  suspicion  of  Ameri- 
cans easy  and  natural.  Every  addition  to  their  num- 
ber in  Mexico  was  declared  to  be  in  furtherance  of 
the  intention  of  the  United  States  to  take  possession 
of  the  whole  country.  Wealthy  monopolists  also, 
dreading  the  incoming  of  competition,  made  com- 
mon cause  with  retrograde  priests  and  narrow  poli- 
ticians in  decrying  the  foreigner. 

Against  all  these  influences  Diaz  resolutely  set 
himself.  He  took  the  ground  that  a  sparsely  set- 
tled, poor,  and  backward  country  needed  foreign  set- 
tlers and  capital  to  develop  it,  and  would  be  the  bet- 
ter if  it  would  learn  from  these  foreigners  some  of 
their  modern  and  progressive  ways.  The  matter  of 
railroads  became  a  crucial  question.  The  president 
saw  distinctly  two  things.  One  was  that  railways 
were  necessary  both  to  the  stability  of  his  govern- 
ment and  the  development  of  the  country;  and 
the  other,  that  Mexicans  would  not  build  them. 
Only  a  few  of  his  people  had  sufficient  money,  and 
they  would  not  invest  it  in  that  way.     So  he  frankly 


Internal  Improvements.  167 

encourao^ed  foreign  corporations.  The  roads  were 
subsidized.  Congress  granted  favorable  conditions 
as  to  tariffs  during,  and  for  a  time  after,  construc- 
tion. The  president  used  this  as  an  entering  wedge 
to  encourage  other  foreign  investments,  and  by  giv- 
ing all  foreigners  generous  treatment  and  full  legal 
protection,  he  won  their  warm  good  will.  The  value 
of  this  to  his  administration  has  not  been  slight. 
Probably  five  hundred  millions  of  foreign  money 
are  now  invested  in  that  republic.  With  the  friendly 
backing  of  men  controlling  all  that,  the  financial 
standing  of  the  government  is  easily  assured. 

We  pass  thus  from  considerations  of  the  j>ersonal 
traits  of  Mexico's  president  to  an  examination  of 
the  measures  by  which  he  has  made  the  last  three 
decades  the  most  peaceful  which  that  country  has 
seen  for  a  century.  No  one  of  them  has  been  of 
such  consummate  wisdom  as  to  justify  the  claim 
for  him  of  genius.  Yet  they  have  been,  without  ex- 
ception, marked  by  a  certain  practical  sagacity  and 
sense  of  proportion  which  for  everyday  affairs  are 
quite  as  valuable  as  genius.  For  the  country  at  large 
and  for  his  government  in  relation  to  it.  the  chief 
problems  which  President  Diaz  found  were  those 
of  policing,  finance,  and  development.  How  he  met 
them  is,  in  detail,  a  long  story.  Yet  the  outline  is 
simple,  as  we  shall  see. 

First  of  all  was  the  protection  of  the  government 
and  of  the  people  from  their  enemies.  Brigands  had 
taken    possession    of   the   highways   and    mountain 


i68  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

passes,  and  crimes  a^^ainst  person  and  property  had 
long  gone  unpunished.  As  for  enemies  of  the  gov- 
ernment, there  were  left,  here  and  there,  a  number 
of  influential  generals  who  could  see  no  impropriety 
in  their  following  the  custom  that  had  so  long  ob- 
tained in  Mexico  of  seeking  by  force  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  supreme  power.  The  Church  party 
also,  who  recognized  in  Diaz  a  determined  and  un- 
compromising liberal,  one  who  had  had  much  to 
do  with  the  defeat  of  their  pet  scheme  of  the  French 
intervention,  though  beaten  and  deprived  of  much 
of  their  resources,  were  by  no  means  ready  to  give 
up  the  fight. 

To  meet  this  situation  Diaz  kept  the  men  of  real 
influence  and  ability,  whom  he  suspected  of  revolu- 
tionary designs,  constantly  under  his  surveillance. 
They  were  well  provided  for  and  left  in  apparent 
liberty,  but  they  understood  what  risks  a  false  move 
involved.  Even  the  patriotic  Escobedo,  the  hero  of 
Queretaro,  was  for  good  reason  exiled  from  the 
country  before  the  end  of  Diaz's  first  term.  During 
the  second  (in  1886)  General  Garcia  de  la  Cadena 
began  laying  plans  for  an  uprising  in  the  state  of 
Zacatecas.  In  the  midst  of  them  he  was  apprehend- 
ed by  the  local  authorities  and  promptly  executed, 
whether  by  direction  of  the  president  or  not  is  not 
known.  Some  of  the  leading  patriot  generals  were 
made  governors  of  the  different  states,  virtually 
subject  to  appointment  by  the  president,  and  others 
were  left  in  command  of  various  bodies  of  troops. 


The  Rurales.  169 

The  standing^  army  itself  was  scattered  throughout 
the  country.  Even  now  its  separate  brigades  and 
regiments  are  not  often  left  long  at  any  one  place, 
especial  care  being  taken  to  prevent  too  much  of  in- 
timacy between  the  army  and  the  citizens.  From 
all  of  which  it  will  be  seen  that,  availing  himself  of 
the  w'idely  extended  telegraph  system  and  the  rail- 
ways which  now  reach  almost  every  section  of  the 
country,  the  president  has  been  able  to  keep  his  hand 
on  the  military  situation  in  a  manner  which  has 
virtually  made  insurrections  impossible. 

To  eliminate  brigandage  he  organized  a  sort  of 
federal  mounted  police.  Congress  enacted  certain 
specific  laws  regulating  their  duties  and  function, 
but  it  was  from  the  beginning  understood  that  they 
were  to  be  virtuall}-  under  the  personal  direction  of 
the  president.  They  are  well  mounted,  well  paid, 
and,  dressed  in  the  picturesque  charro  riding  habit, 
form  a  body  of  troops  which  captivates  the  imag- 
ination of  adventurous  young  men.  Their  efificiency 
has  from  the  first  been  remarkable.  When  these 
rurales  go  after  a  bandit  they  usually  get  him.  This 
efficiency  was  notably  increased  by  a  shrewd  move 
on  the  president's  part.  Getting  into  communication 
with  some  of  the  leading  brigands,  he  made  them  the 
unique  proposition  that  they  should  cease  to  be  rolj- 
bers  and  join  his  police  force.  A  number  of  them 
accepted.  The  fate  of  the  rest  was  then  sealed. 
The  formality  of  trial  and  execution  for  brigandage 
in   out-of-the-way   mountain    regions   is  often   dis- 


ijo  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

pensed  with  by  means  of  what  is  called  the  Ley  de 
Fuga, — that  is,  if  a  prisoner  runs  he  must  be  shot. 
Many  a  wretched  murderer  has  been  left  weltering 
by  the  roadside,  the  sergeant  in  charge  merely  re- 
porting that  he  attempted  to  escape. 

Train  wrecking  was  indulged  in  by  the  lawless 
for  a  time.  Thereupon  congress,  at  the  president's 
instance,  passed  a  law  depriving  of  the  right  of  trial 
by  jury,  and  of  other  constitutional  guarantees,  any 
man  who  should  be  proved  to  have  had  anything  to 
do  with  derailing  or  robbing  a  train.  The  effect 
was  instantaneous.  Train  robbing  ceased.  Now 
Alexico  is  one  of  the  best  policed  countries  in  the 
civilized  world.  The  traveler  may  penetrate  its  most 
remote  mountain  fastnesses  with  the  assurance  that 
in  some  near-by  village  is  a  squad  of  gray-coated 
ruralcs,  keeping  a  sharp  watch  on  the  wild  trails  and 
wild  people  about  him. 

The  financial  measures  of  the  Diaz  administra- 
tion, and  the  steps  taken  by  it  for  the  development 
of  the  country  and  people,  will  occupy  us  in  the  fol- 
lowing chapter. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Thirty  Years  of  Progress. 

In  1876  the  poverty  and  backwardness  of  the 
Mexican  people  were  such  as  showed  but  too  clear- 
ly the  disastrous  effects  of  fifty  years  of  almost  con- 
tinuous civil  war.  Theirs  is  a  country  of  vast  nat- 
ural wealth  and  of  almost  unlimited  resources.  But 
agriculture  had  languished,  and  commerce  had  been 
cramped  by  foolish  tariff  restrictions  between  state 
and  state,  by  lack  of  transportation  facilities,  and 
by  interminable  political  disturbances.  The  govern- 
ment was  without  prestige  at  home  or  credit  abroad. 
Treaties  made  by  Juarez  at  the  close  of  the  inter- 
vention had  temporarily  quieted  the  restlessness  of 
foreign  investors,  since  rather  than  leave  to  other 
governments  any  possible  pretext  for  dissatisfaction 
he  had  actually  assumed  some  of  the  compromises 
and  obligations  of  Maximilian.  Experiments  in  va- 
rious kinds  of  taxation  had  been  undertaken  at  dif- 
ferent times  in  the  country's  history,  but  the  chief 
dependence  of  the  federal  government  was  always, 
as  it  is  yet,  upon  import  duties.  The  country,  not 
being  given  to  manufacturing,  imports  extensively 
the  finished  products  which  its  people  require,  and 
the  income  from  tariffs  is  steady.  Under  President 
Diaz  a  stamp  tax  and  various  forms  of  internal  rev- 
enue have  been  experimented  with.    The  old  bonded 

(^70 


172  A  New^  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

debt  held  in  England  was,  in  1886,  after  one  or  two 
previous  efforts  had  failed,  refunded,  and  the  rate 
of  interest  reduced.  The  movement  of  commerce 
has  been  greatly  stimulated  by  the  advent  of  rail- 
ways, and  agriculture  and  mining  have  flourished 
by  reason  of  continued  peace. 

The  president  has  been  especially  scrupulous  to 
maintain,  by  prompt  payment  of  the  interest  on  all 
its  obligations,  the  credit  of  his  government.  As 
the  money  of  the  country  is  on  a  silver  basis,  while 
the  interest  on  its  bonds  is  payable  in  gold,  when  in 
the  early  nineties  the  price  of  silver  sank  so  rapidly, 
and  when  along  with  that  came  a  drought  that  in 
1893  approached  the  dimensions  of  a  famine,  the 
government  found  itself  in  sore  straits.  An  ap- 
peal was  made  to  the  federal  employees,  who  there- 
upon agreed  to  contribute  a  percentage  of  their  sal- 
aries till  the  national  treasury  should  be  able  to  ad- 
just itself  to  these  unfriendly  conditions.  This  is 
rightly  looked  upon  as  a  notable  instance  of  the  pa- 
triotism of  the  Mexican  people  and  of  their  con- 
fidence in  President  Diaz.  This  period  of  financial 
depression,  with  the  continued  reduction  in  the  ex- 
change value  of  silver,  had  one  unexpected  but  hap- 
py result.  The  people  began  to  manufacture  many 
things  which  they  had  hitherto  imported.  The  raw 
materials  and  the  labor  could  be  had  at  their  old 
prices  in  a  silver  currency  while  the  higher  exchange 
operated  with  the  high  tariff's  to  hinder  the  importa- 
tion of  finished  products.     The  general  scarcity  of 


Important  Fiscal  Measures.  173 

fuel  throughout  the  countr}^  will,  however,  be  al- 
ways a  bar  to  the  extensive  development  of  manu- 
facturing interests  in  Mexico. 

The  government,  under  the  able  direction  of  Mr. 
Jose  Ives  Limantour,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
has  in  recent  years  overcome  its  many  financial  han- 
dicaps, and  is  now  in  a  comfortable  way.  Its  credit 
abroad  is  stable,  its  current  expenses — among  which 
has  not  yet  been  included  a  navy — are  promptly 
met,  and  its  resources  are  constantly  increasing. 
The  fluctuations  in  the  price  of  silver  still,  of  course, 
cause  much  inconvenience.  After  many  efforts, 
the  several  states  have  at  last  been  cleared  of  their 
local  customhouses,  their  local  coinage,  and  of  vari- 
ous other  relics  of  their  former  provincial  status,  all 
of  which  had  long  hindered  the  industrial  advance- 
ment of  the  people.  Thirty  years  of  peace  for  the 
development  of  agriculture,  during  which  time  mon- 
ey has  poured  into  the  country  for  investment  in 
mining,  railways,  and  manufacturing,  have  added 
immensely  to  the  people's  wealth,  while  giving  op- 
portunity for  the  development  of  popular  education, 
a  free  press,  municipal  improvements,  and  the  va- 
ried arts  of  modern  civilization. 

From  the  beginning  the  lilierals  have  advocated 
popular  education.  The  ignorance  of  the  people 
they  rightly  held  responsible  for  their  slow  progress 
in  civilization,  and  especially  for  their  inert  sub- 
serviency to  a  self-seeking  hierarchy.  It  was  this 
power  of  the  conservative  leaders  over  the  masses 


174  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

that  time  and  again  defeated  the  plans  of  men  who 
sought  the  Hberation  and  enhghtenment  of  the 
v.hole  people.  As  soon  as  possible  after  getting  con- 
trol of  things,  Juarez  planned  an  elaborate  public 
school  system,  modeled  in  a  large  measure  upon  that 
of  the  United  States,  of  which  he  had  made  a  study. 
This  was  set  in  operation  in  the  federal  district  and 
in  as  many  of  the  states  as  could  be  persuaded  to  fol- 
low the  example.  It  has  during  the  administration 
of  General  Diaz  been  carefully  elaborated  and  devel- 
oped, becoming  more  and  more  efficient  as  time 
demonstrates  to  a  naturally  conservative  people  its 
value  to  their  country. 

It  has  had  from  the  beginning  to  contend  with 
the  implacable  hostility  of  the  Church.  No  longer 
able  to  wield  its  old  influence  in  the  military  and 
political  affairs  of  the  country,  the  Catholic  Church 
still  reigned  well-nigh  supreme  in  the  social  realm. 
All  persons  who  had  any  pretensions  to  wealth  and 
social  standing  were  under  strict  orders  from  it.  To 
show  friendship  to  any  of  the  progressive  measures 
of  the  liberals  was  to  invite  anathemas  and  social 
ostracism.  The  public  schools  especially  came  under 
the  ban  as  atheistical  and  plebeian.  Both  teachers 
and  pupils  placed  themselves  by  the  very  fact  of 
their  connection  with  the  public  school  among  the 
excommunicated  and  religiously  outcast. 

This  produced  two  effects.  First,  it  greatly 
cramped  the  development  of  the  public  school  sys- 
tems.    Outside  the  cities  and  larger  towns,  in  those 


Public  Schools  and  the  Church.  175 

smaller  communities  where  the  word  of  the  priest 
is  paramount,  these  schools  have  made  their  way 
very  slowly  indeed.  Only  by  the  resolution  of  some 
public-spirited  citizen  will  they  be  found  to  exist  at 
all  in  such  communities,  and  then  probably  at  a  poor 
dying  rate. 

The  other  result  of  this  hostility  will  seem  insig- 
nificant to  some,  though  really  it  is  a  most  serious 
matter.  In  the  absence  until  within  very  recent 
years  of  any  other  presentation  of  Christian  truth 
than  that  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  by 
virtue  of  the  exaggerated  claims  of  that  Church,  it 
was  taken  for  granted  in  the  minds  of  most  Mex- 
icans that  any  one  who  broke  with  the  Catholic 
Church  was,  ipso  facto,  an  atheist.  The  poor  but 
ambitious  young  man  or  woman  who  saw  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  the  only  means  of  securing  an  education 
was  convinced  beforehand  that  to  be  educated  meant 
to  be  a  skeptic.  Even  the  professors,  many  of  whom 
ought  to  have  known  better,  admitted  the  implica- 
tion, and,  however  ill  in  some  instances  it  may  have 
suited  their  inclinations,  allowed  themselves  to  be 
classed  with  the  unbelieving. 

The  public  schools  became  by  all  this  the  hope  of 
the  lowest  social  stratum.  People  of  that  class  had 
not  much  to  lose,  and  felt  that  there  might  be  some- 
thing in  the  schools  to  gain.  Means  of  rising  from 
their  poverty  and  ignorance  had  never  before  been 
offerefl  them.  The  Indian  had  come  into  his  own 
at  last.     How  they  have  profited  is  a  most  engaging 


176  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

story.  The  girls  especially  have  forged  upward 
through  the  various  grades  of  primary,  secondary, 
and  high  school  work,  completing  often  with  nota- 
ble merit  the  state  normal  course,  and  going  out 
from  homes  of  poverty  and  squalor  to  be  the  teach- 
ers of  the  next  generation.  The  physical  and  in- 
tellectual vitality  of  the  lower  classes  is  superior  to 
that  of  the  wealthy  families,  many  of  whom  are 
showing  the  deterioration  of  three  hundred  years  of 
pampering.  One  result  of  these  new  opportunities 
for  the  poor  must  be  a  leveling  of  the  social  distinc- 
tions that  have  long  cursed  Mexico,  and  thus  a  dis- 
tinct impulse  to  the  development  of  a  real  and  vital 
democracy. 

These  recent  years  have  seen  the  amelioration  of 
the  poor  in  other  respects  than  in  educational  priv- 
ileges. Some  old  laws  concerning  the  relation  be- 
tween farm  laborers  and  the  owner  of  the  land, 
which  reflected  the  feudalistic  spirit  of  the  vice-regal 
administration,  and  by  which  the  laborer  was  vir- 
tually the  slave  of  the  land-holder,  have  at  last  been 
abolished.  The  substitution  of  various  kinds  of 
script,  redeemable  only  by  those  issuing  it,  for  mon- 
ey in  the  payment  of  wages,  and  the  circulation  in 
several  states  of  a  depreciated  local  currency,  gave 
the  federal  government  much  concern  till  both  were 
at  last  abolished.  The  states  have  little  by  little 
come  to  accept  the  well-established  principle  of  tax- 
ing the  land,  though  it  had  never  before  been  done, 
since  the  owners  of  the  land  were  precisely  the  men 


Effects  of  the  Reform  Laws.  177 

who  made  the  laws.  The  abolition  of  alcabalas,  or 
duties  charged  upon  goods  entering  a  state,  or  even 
a  city,  lifted  from  the  back  of  the  poor  agricultural- 
ist one  of  the  heaviest  and  most  unreasonable  bur- 
dens he  had  been  called  upon  to  bear.  Most  of  the 
reforms  just  mentioned  have  been  forced,  a  little  at 
a  time,  upon  reluctant  states  by  the  persistency  of 
the  federal  government. 

The  beneficent  results  of  some  of  the  Leyes  de 
Rcforma,  upon  whose  enforcement  President  Diaz 
has  resolutely  insisted,  are  beginning  at  last  to  make 
themselves  distinctly  felt.  Among  these  none  have 
been  more  important  to  public  morals  than  the  laws 
concerning  civil  marriage  and  the  secularization  of 
the  cemeteries.  One  of  the  standing  abuses  of  the 
old  ecclesiastical  system  was  in  the  enormous  fees 
cliarged  by  the  priests  for  marriage.  Although 
philanthropic  popes  and  bishops  issued  from  time  to 
time  proclamations  regulating  this  fee,  they  came 
to  nothing.  The  practice  of  the  priests  was  to 
charge  every  cent  they  thought  the  bridegroom  could 
pay,  and  to  refuse  to  proceed  with  the  ceremony  till 
the  money  was  in  hand.  As  a  result,  the  poor  often 
omitted  marriage  entirely.  This  brought  wide- 
spread disaster  to  the  morals  of  the  people.  The 
law  of  Juarez  made  marriage  purely  a  civil  matter. 
It  is  carefully  safeguarded  by  all  due  precautions, 
but  is  free,  a  small  fee  being  allowed  for  the  ex- 
pense of  recording,  etc.     If  the  contracting  parties 

wish  a  religious  ceremony  also,  they  are  free  to  have 
12 


178  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

it,  but  it  has  no  legal  status.  The  people  were  slow 
to  incur  the  anathemas  of  the  priests  by  availing 
themselves  of  this  law,  but  they  have  now  begun 
almost  universally  to  do  so. 

The  cemeteries  were  also  a  means  of  extortion. 
By  insisting  that  all  dead  should  be  buried  in  con- 
secrated ground  and  by  consecrating  only  a  small 
area,  the  clergy  made  that  area  abnormally  valuable 
and  were  able  to  collect  immense  revenues  out  of 
the  lease  and  sale  of  plats.  Under  the  present  law 
the  cemeteries  must  be  controlled  by  the  municipal- 
ities or  by  some  other  government  entity,  and  their 
regulations,  charges,  and  management  generally  are 
subject  to  civil  enactment  and  made  matters  of  pub- 
lic knowledge. 

Such  are  some  of  the  lines  upon  which  is  proceed- 
ing the  social  and  political  development  of  the  Mex- 
ican people  as  guided  by  the  dominating  personal- 
ity of  President  Diaz.  It  should  be  remembered 
that,  to  a  degree  which  can  scarcely  be  comprehend- 
ed by  one  not  actually  conversant  with  affairs  there, 
what  the  federal  government  does  means  what  Gen- 
eral Porfirio  Diaz  wishes  done.  It  is  to  his  ever- 
lasting credit  that  the  measures  which  he  has  in- 
stigated have  been  so  nearly  always  for  the  good  of 
the  people,  and  not  merely  to  gratify  his  own  whims 
or  to  advance  his  personal  interests.  He  has  accom- 
plished much.  Much  remains  to  be  done.  Let  us  in 
the  next  chapter  briefly  review  some  of  the  problems 
and  difficulties  which  still  await  him. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
The  Situation  To-day. 

In  Mexico  as  elsewhere  the  political  well-being  of 
the  people  is  inseparably  bound  up  with  their  moral 
condition.  The  effect  upon  public  and  private 
morals  of  many  of  those  influences  with  which  our 
studies  have  been  concerned  was  necessarily  pro- 
found. So  far,  however,  this  has  been  lightly  passed 
over.  An  intimate  acquaintance  with  its  people 
and  some  knowdedge  of  those  causes  w'hich,  involun- 
tarily to  themselves,  have  operated  to  put  them  at  a 
disadvantage  morally,  will  cause  the  student  to  hes- 
itate before  bringing  a  general  indictment  against 
any  nation.  The  careless  traveler,  writing  after  su- 
perficial observation,  will  lay  on  his  colors  thick.  He 
is  sure  that  the  moral  shortcomings  which  are 
strange  to  him,  and  therefore  peculiarly  abhorrent, 
are  worse  than  those  of  his  own  people.  But  a  more 
careful  balancing  of  causes  and  effects  and  a  more 
profound  study  of  the  essential  unity  of  human  na- 
ture will  often  serve  to  show  that  the  differences 
seemingly  so  wide  are  really  in  degree  rather  than 
in  kind,  in  manifestation  and  not  in  essence.  Hu- 
man nature  as  found  in  Mexico,  native  and  import- 
ed, was  from  the  first  the  ordinary  article.  Such 
moral   warp,   therefore,   as   it  seems  now^  to  show 

079) 


i8o  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

must  be  charged,  in  so  much  as  it  is  at  ah  pecuhar, 
to  pecuHar  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  it. 

Some  of  the  most  important  of  these  have  been 
pointed  out.  First  of  all  is  to  be  reckoned  the  priva- 
tion of  enlightenment.  It  was  bad  enough  that  the 
Indian  was  not  educated  for  the  duties  of  citizen- 
ship and  in  order  that  he  might  rise  in  the  social 
scale.  But  a  far  deeper  and  deadlier  injury  was 
done  him  by  denying  him  moral  instruction.  Re- 
ligious liberty  on  the  basis  of  an  open  Bible  and  free- 
dom of  worship  is  the  greatest  boon  that  can  be  be- 
stowed on  a  nation.  It  bears  directly  and  essen- 
tially on  the  development  of  individual  character. 
There  can  be  no  better  training  in  the  self-reliance 
and  initiative  needed  for  the  ordinary  affairs  of 
life  than  is  had  by  dealing  at  first  hand  and  from 
childhood  with  the  momentous  issues  of  religion. 

The  Bible  is,  in  other  words,  the  pioneer  of  lib- 
erty. It  was  precisely  because  of  this  that  those 
who  did  not  desire  that  Mexico  should  be  free  kept 
the  Bible  from  her  people.  In  so  doing  they  ac- 
complished their  object  of  perpetuating  a  submis- 
sive spirit  among  them,  but  at  the  cost  of  that  moral 
degeneration  which  the  lack  of  such  instruction  as 
is  imparted  by  the  Christian  Scriptures  is  sure  to 
produce.  The  Mexicans  were  taught  to  consider 
themselves  Christians,  yet  were  denied  the  Chris- 
tian literature  which  alone  could  give  them  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  term.  The  result  was  a 
profound  and  widespread  confusion  as  to  the  na- 


The  Bible  and  National  Life.  i8i 

tiire  of  Christianity,  and,  as  with  the  passing  years 
tlie  evil  worked  itself  out,  a  disastrous  divorce  be- 
tween religion  and  morality.  This  separation  is 
one  of  the  things  which  should  never  be.  Religion 
is  not  religion  if  it  is  unmoral,  while  ethics  without 
religion  is  on  a  basis  so  unstable  that  it  furnishes  no 
guarantee  for  a  solid  national  life. 

It  is  but  stating  a  manifest  truth  to  add  that  this 
confusion  as  to  the  moral  significance  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  was  not  confined  to  the  people,  but  in- 
fected also  even  their  religious  teachers.  The  stand- 
ard, intellectual  and  moral,  of  the  Mexican  priest- 
hood, became,  as  time  passed,  lower  and  lower. 
When,  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  present  evangel- 
ical movement,  discussions  would  arise  from  time 
to  time  between  the  priests  and  the  advocates  of 
Protestantism,  it  was  found  that  only  rarely  did  a 
priest  possess  any  sort  of  a  Bible,  and  still  more  rare- 
ly did  one  show  the  most  rudimentary  acquaintance 
with  the  Bible's  contents.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  has  much  to  answer  for ;  but  seeing  what  the 
Bible  has  been  worth  to  the  modern  world,  it  would 
seem  that  no  graver  responsibility  can  be  charged 
against  her  than  the  withholding  of  these  benefits 
from  those  peoples  over  whom  she  has  exercised 
control. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  point  out  further  that 
the  moral  tendency  of  some  of  the  abuses  which  the 
reform  laws  attempted  to  correct  was  not  less  grave 
than  their  political  objectionableness.     Indeed,  the 


i82  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

two  are  most  intimately  connected.  The  corruption 
of  the  people  by  reason  of  the  difficulties  placed  in 
the  way  of  marriage,  for  example,  was  appalling.  It 
was  all  the  worse  because  it  received  a  quasi  sanc- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  Church.  No  serious  dif- 
ficulty was  made  concerning  the  absolution  and  final 
pardon  of  a  man  or  woman  who  had  lived  in  open 
disregard  of  sexual  morality.  The  priests,  indeed, 
could  not  afford  to  be  exacting  at  this  point,  for 
among  them  the  baneful  effects  of  Rome's  dogma 
of  priestly  celibacy  were  everywhere  in  evidence. 
As  to  this  we  have  the  testimony  of  one  who,  a 
priest  himself,  can  scarcely  be  suspected  of  over- 
stating the  facts  through  hostility  or  prejudice. 

With  the  French  expeditionary  forces  at  the  time 
of  Maximilian's  intervention  went  the  Abbe  Do- 
menech,  as  chaplain  general,  becoming  later  Maxi- 
milian's "director  of  the  press."  Upon  his  return 
to  Paris  in  1867  he  printed  a  small  volume  which  he 
called  Le  Mexique  tel  qu'il  est — "Mexico  as  It  Is." 
With  engaging  frankness  and  in  that  sprightly  and 
direct  style  which  seems  natural  to  a  Frenchman,  he 
criticises  Mexico — politically,  socially,  religiously. 
This  semi-humorous  paragraph  about  the  priests 
will  suffice  both  as  a  sample  of  his  manner  and  as 
a  corroboration  of  the  statements  made  above :  "The 
clergy  carry  their  love  of  family  to  that  of  paternity. 
In  my  travels  in  the  interior  of  Mexico  many  pastors 
have  refused  me  hospitality  in  order  to  prevent  my 
seeing  their  'nieces'  and  'cousins,'  and  their  chil- 


Catholic  Testimonies.  183 

dren.  It  is  difficult  to  determine  the  character  of 
these  connections.  Priests  who  are  known  and  rec- 
ognized as  fathers  of  famihes  are  by  no  means  rare. 
The  people  consider  it  natural  enough,  and  do  not 
rail  at  the  conduct  of  their  pastors  except  when  they 
are  not  content  with  one  wife.  In  man}^  places  the 
priests  indeed  marry,  and  their  wives  are  known  as 
such." 

The  abbe  then  tells  with  evident  amusement  of 
how  one  of  these  women  defied  a  merchant  who 
threatened  to  have  her  arrested  because  she  would 
not  pay  for  a  dress  she  had  bought,  "I  would  have 
you  understand,  sir,"  she  said,  "that  I  belong  to  the 
Sacred  Mitre!"  That  is,  she  was  entitled  to  the 
fiiero  of  being  tried  only  by  a  Church  court ! 

Of  the  ignorance  as  to  the  real  meaning  of  Chris- 
tianity and  its  bearing  upon  practical  morals  which 
prevailed  throughout  Mexico,  both  this  abbe  and 
Madame  Calderon  de  la  Barca,  another  devout 
Catholic,  who  printed  a  book  about  that  country, 
give  ample  testimony.  Madame  de  la  Barca  was  the 
wife  of  the  first  Spanish  minister  sent  to  Mexico 
after  the  independence  of  that  country  was  recog- 
nized by  Spain,  Passing  through  the  United  States 
on  her  way  to  Mexico  in  1839,  she  left  her  daughters 
at  school  in  Boston,  Her  weekly  letters  to  them 
were  so  intelligent  and  so  frank  and  so  sprightly  that 
W,  H.  Prescott,  the  historian,  who  heard  them  read 
from  time  to  time,  begged  that  they  might  be  print- 
ed.    Under  the  title  of  "Life  in  Mexico"  the  book 


i84  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

was  issued  in  1843.  ^^  is  a  most  vivid  picture  of 
social,  religious,  and  political  conditions.  The 
lady's  position  gave  her  access  to  everything  that 
was  of  interest  to  her,  and  her  pen-pictures  disclose 
conditions  that  can  only  be  taken  as  a  stern  in- 
dictment of  the  Church  which  had  already,  when 
she  wrote,  had  three  hundred  years  in  which  to 
impress  its  teachings  upon  a  docile  and  not  stu- 
pid race. 

It  is  unfortunately  true,  also,  that  the  divorce  be- 
tween morality  and  religion  was  made  as  complete 
in  the  matter  of  truth-telling  and  common  honesty 
as  in  regard  to  social  purity.  The  extreme  poverty 
and  the  servile  status  of  the  lower  classes  brought 
with  them  naturally  the  servile  vices  of  lying  and 
stealing,  against  which,  unhappily,  the  Church,  with 
its  Jesuitical  distinction  between  venial  and  mortal 
sins  and  its  mechanical  definition  of  piety,  set  up  no 
adequate  barrier.  Instead  of  providing  remedies 
for  the  evil  tendencies  of  a  defective  social  and  polit- 
ical organization,  it  indeed  but  emphasized  those 
evils  by  identifying  itself  with  the  oppressions  and 
the  invidious  distinctions  by  which  the  ignorant  and 
poor  were  held  in  their  unhappy  estate.  It  cannot 
be  surprising,  therefore,  that  when  the  patriot  lead- 
ers set  out  to  break  the  shackles  of  the  people,  their 
attacks  seemed,  in  more  than  one  particular,  to  be 
launched  directly  against  the  Church.  And  for  the 
same  reason  it  must  be  evident  that  the  burden  of 
national  ignorance  and  moral  degradation,  which  to 


n 

> 

H 
a: 


> 

> 


The  Religious  Question.  185 

this  day  menaces  the  onward  march  of  free  institu- 
tions, makes  the  question  of  Mexico's  future  first  of 
all  a  religious  question. 

The  reader  will  now  scarcely  need  be  told  that,  in 
my  opinion,  the  one  means  for  assuring  the  stability 
of  the  Mexican  republic,  as  well  as  the  permanent 
well-being  of  the  people  who  are  its  citizens,  is  the 
vital  improvement  of  the  religious  situation.  With- 
out attempting  to  settle  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  Roman  Catholic  presentation  of  religious  truth 
is  ever  adequate  to  insure  a  stable  national  life,  it 
needs  only  to  be  pointed  out  that  in  this  instance  its 
failure,  after  four  centuries  of  opportunity,  is  so  ab- 
solute that  something  more  must  be  done.  From 
the  testimony  of  devout  Catholics  it  is  evident  that 
Mexico  is  far  below  the  religious  ideal  of  even  that 
Church.  In  other  words,  the  Catholicism  of  the 
country  needs  itself  to  be  purged  and  elevated.  Un- 
prejudiced observers  will  be  sure  to  add  also  that 
it  is  time  that  Church  should  no  longer  have  a  mo- 
noply.  Its  unchallenged  supremacy  during  these  cen- 
turies has,  more  than  any  other  one  thing,  tended  to 
its  own  corruption.  For  its  own  sake,  therefore,  it 
needs  a  comi^etitor.  President  Juarez,  with  that 
clearness  of  vision  which  made  him  the  greatest  of 
Mexicans,  openly  expressed  this  opinion,  and  showed 
that  he  was  serious  in  it  by  giving  to  the  first  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Protestant  faith  who  arrived  soon 
after  the  fall  of  Maximilian  a  most  hearty  welcome. 
lie  even  went  so  far  as  to  contribute  for  their  work 


i86  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

a  confiscated  Catholic  church,  the  chapel  of  San  Jose 
de  la  Gracia  in  Mexico  City. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter  here  upon  a  detailed 
portraiture  of  the  darker  aspects  of  Mexico's  mental 
and  moral  condition.  Besides  being  outside  the  pur- 
pose of  this  volume,  this  undertaking  is  the  less  at- 
tractive to  me  because  of  my  firm  conviction  that 
in  the  worst  of  these  phases  of  national  character 
the  Mexican  people  have  been  more  sinned  against 
than  sinning.  A  further  consideration  is  that  con- 
ditions there,  under  the  influence  of  Protestant  mis- 
sions, free  schools,  a  free  press,  a  growing  postal 
system,  railways,  telegraph  and  telephone  lines,  and 
the  pressure  of  enlightened  public  sentiment,  are 
rapidly  improving.  A  picture  true  to-day  would  be 
too  dark  for  to-morrow.  Let  us  look  to  the  bright 
future  rather  than  to  the  gloomy  past. 

But  my  effort  to  set  forth  the  meaning  of  Mexico's 
history  will  have  been  in  vain  if  it  is  not  clear  by  this 
time  that  the  future  of  liberty  and  progress  there, 
the  permanence  of  republican  institutions,  at  any 
rate,  is  menaced  chiefly  by  ignorant  indifference  to 
the  privileges  of  citizenship,  on  the  one  hand,  and, 
on  the  other,  by  widespread  moral  incompetence  for 
their  exercise.  The  improvement  intellectually  and 
morally  of  the  mass  of  the  country's  citizenship  is 
the  great  task  of  her  statesmen.  The  exigencies  of 
the  problem  of  administration  have,  up  to  the  pres- 
ent, been  such  that  the  government,  though  repub- 
lican in  name,  has  been  forced  to  preserve  in  a  large 


Value  of  the  Gospel.  187 

measure  the  character  of  a  dictatorship.  One  of  the 
chief  evils  of  such  a  condition  of  things  is  the  dif- 
ficulty of  the  transition  from  the  autocratic  to  the 
democratic  manner  of  government.  Paternalism  does 
not  prepare  the  average  citizen  for  the  duties  of  cit- 
izenship. It  is  but  human  nature  that  he  should  rath- 
er lapse  into  indifference,  and  say,  "If  the  president 
will  do  everything,  he  may."  It  is  manifestly  unfair 
to  President  Diaz  to  blame  him  for  being  somewhat 
autocratic.  He  governs  in  this  way  not  merely  be- 
cause he  will,  but  because  he  must. 

There  is  not  an  ill  of  the  body  politic  nor  of  the 
individual  citizen  for  which  the  gospel  is  not  the 
best  of  remedies.  All  that  has  been  said  of  the  val- 
ue of  the  open  Bible  as  a  civilizing  agency  is  doubly 
true  when  to  the  Bible  is  added  the  influence  of 
the  living  Church.  Mexico  needs  Protestantism  as 
a  check  and  a  correction  for  Romanism,  it  is  true; 
infinitely  more,  however,  does  she  need  the  pure 
gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  for  its  own  sake.  The  im- 
pulse which  the  Protestant  faith  gives  to  intellectual 
development  is  but  a  part  of  its  value.  Even  more 
essential  to  national  well-being  is  the  elevation  of  in- 
dividual character  and  the  inculcation  of  self-re- 
straint and  love  for  others  which  Christianity  brings. 
Democracies  are  established  on  a  permanent  foun- 
dation not  simply  by  enlightenment  (ilustracion) 
sufificient  to  cognize  what  are  the  rights  of  man,  nor 
yet  by  the  spirit  of  revolution  which  dares  assert 
those  rights  in  the  teeth  of  tyranny.     Freedom  is 


i88  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

not  license.  The  individuars  rights  must  be  seen  as 
Hmited  by  the  rights  of  others.  Clearness  of  vision 
to  see  this  and  power  of  self-control  to  accept  it 
are  a  fruit  of  the  gospel.  It  is  in  the  altruism  which 
Christianity  inculcates,  in  the  practice,  more  or  less 
perfect,  of  the  golden  rule  of  Christ,  that  the  essen- 
tial institutions  of  democracy  will  find  their  true  sta- 
bility and  permanence. 

How  deep  and  melancholy  is  Mexico's  need  of  the 
consolations  of  the  gospel  as  a  balm  for  the  indi- 
vidual sorrows  and  the  unhealed  moral  sicknesses  of 
her  people,  is  a  theme  upon  which  I  will  not  enter 
here.  But  that  the  influence  upon  her  citizens  of 
Protestant  schools,  of  Protestant  freedom  of  thought, 
Protestant  probity  and  initiative,  is  to  be  an  essen- 
tial factor  in  solving  the  national  problems  of  this 
near  neighbor  of  ours  is  a  proposition  which  must 
commend  itself  to  every  thoughtful  observer. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Modern  Religious  Movements. 

Only  this  single  chapter  is  devoted  to  a  history 
of  Protestantism  in  Mexico,  for  the  double  reason 
that  full  accounts  are  accessible  in  the  records  of 
the  various  societies  engaged  there  and  because  the 
work  is  going  forward  so  rapidly  that  any  record 
of  it  has  only  a  transitory  value.  The  constitution 
of  1857  first  proclaimed  religious  liberty,  but  since 
it  was  a  matter  of  ten  years  before  that  instrument 
could  be  enforced,  no  mission  work  of  consequence 
was  undertaken  till  the  early  seventies.  Before  the 
sixth  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  over,  a 
little  work  had  been  done  along  the  northern  bor- 
der of  the  country,  chiefly  by  way  of  distributing 
Bibles.  A  few  schools  had  been  begun  also,  mostly 
as  private  enterprises,  but  which  later  became  mis- 
sionary agencies.  Late  in  that  decade  a  minister  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  Rev.  H.  C.  Riley, 
reached  Mexico  City  and  began  at  once  to  provide 
for  the  establishment  of  Protestantism.  He  was  well 
introduced  and  had  the  confidence  and  indirect  sup- 
port of  President  Juarez.  So  impressed  was  the 
president  with  the  value  of  this  new  movement  that 
he  turned  over  to  Mr.  Riley  one  of  the  confiscated 
chapels,  as  has  been  already  noted,  and  (Opened  the 

(189) 


igo  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

way  for  his  purchase  of  another  and  much  larger 
one. 

About  the  same  time  several  spontaneous  reli- 
gious movements  arose  among  the  Mexicans  them- 
selves, one  of  them  in  particular  having  crystallized 
about  a  French  Bible  brought  over  by  one  of  Na- 
poleon's soldiers.  It  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  pa- 
triot Mexican  soldier,  at  the  time  a  prisoner  of  the 
French,  named  Sostenes  Juarez.  So  taken  was  he 
with  its  contents  that  he  said  to  himself.  "This  is 
a  better  weapon  with  which  to  fight  the  clero  than 
is  the  sword."  As  soon  as  possible  therefore  after 
obtaining  his  release  he  organized  a  little  society 
and  began  to  be  a  teacher  of  the  Bible.  This  was  in 
1865.  Later  he  became  a  minister  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South.  The  old  French  Bible 
with  the  manuscript  articles  of  organization  of 
that  primitive  society  are  now  in  the  archives  of 
that  Church's  Mission  Board  at  Nashville,  Tenn. 

Mr.  Riley's  work  received  support  for  a  time  from 
a  sort  of  interdenominational  organization,  but  later 
was  taken  over  by  the  Board  of  Missions  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States, 
and  since  that  time  has  sujffered  a  good  many  vicis- 
situdes. For  a  time  it  was  decidedly  the  most  vig- 
orous and  promising  of  the  evangelical  movements, 
and  did  an  especially  valuable  service  in  training  for 
the  ministry  a  number  of  bright  young  Mexicans. 
Mr.  Riley  was  made  a  bishop  of  his  Church,  but 
was  later  deposed,  after  which  he  connected  him- 


Early  Methods  and  Movements.  igi 

self  for  a  time  with  an  independent  movement.  The 
mission  of  the  Episcopal  Church  is  now  in  a  fairly 
flourishing  condition. 

In  1873  t^"^^  t^^'o  branches  of  Episcopal  Methodism 
began  work,  and  in  rapid  order  were  followed  by 
the  Presbyterians  (North  and  South  and  Associated 
Reformed),  the  Baptists,  North  and  South,  the  Con- 
gregationalists  (American  Board),  the  Friends,  the 
Christian  Church  or  Disciples,  and  the  Seventh  Day 
Adventists.  There  are,  besides,  one  or  two  individu- 
al and  independent  enterprises,  of  English  origin, 
and  quite  recently  a  so-called  "Mexican  National 
Evangelical  Church"  has  arisen. 

All  these  mission  movements  have  proceeded 
along  similar  lines  and  in  substantial  agreement 
with  each  other.  In  the  early  days  when  access  to 
the  people  was  difficult  and  rather  violent  persecu- 
tion common,  recourse  was  had  to  the  agency  of 
day  schools  for  children.  The  public  school  sys- 
tem was  at  the  time  chaotic,  and  the  offer  of  instruc- 
tion in  English  was  found  to  be  a  special  inducement. 
Later  the  primary  day  school  has  been  less  used, 
the  public  schools  having  developed  a  good  deal 
and  the  way  having  opened  for  the  expenditure  of 
most  of  the  mission  funds  on  more  directly  evan- 
gelistic work.  It  is  no  longer  difficult  to  get  at 
the  people.  They  are  quite  willing  to  come  to  the 
preaching  places  provided  these  are  kept  open  at  no 
expense  to  them  and  tliey  can  hear  a  pleasant  and 
interesting  sj)eaker. 


192  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

To  rent  or  build  the  necessary  chapels  and  to  train 
and  support  the  ministers  to  speak  in  them  absorbs 
most  of  the  money  now  employed  in  the  active  prop- 
aganda of  Protestantism.  School  work  is  kept  up 
mostly  in  boarding  schools,  where  the  young  preach- 
ers are  prepared  for  their  work,  and  the  young  wom- 
en are  trained  under  a  protection  and  with  moral  in- 
fluences which  they  could  not  elsewhere  obtain. 

So  much  of  gratuitous  work  has  had  some  bad 
effects  on  the  native  churches  which  have  meantime 
been  organized.  Having  been  brought  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  gospel  by  provisions  for  worship  which 
cost  them  nothing,  and  being  able  to  secure  the  edu- 
cation of  their  choicest  boys  and  girls  in  schools 
where  not  only  tuition  but  often  board  and  books, 
and  sometimes  even  clothes,  are  free,  has  catered  to 
their  dependent  and  indigent  spirit.  They  are  there- 
fore reluctant  to  take  upon  themselves  even  the 
slight  part  of  the  burden  of  further  propagating  the 
churches  which  in  their  poverty  they  might  be  able 
to  bear.  As  a  result  they  miss  to  a  degree  the  stim- 
ulation which  comes  of  a  sense  of  community  of  in- 
terest, of  partnership  in  a  great  enterprise,  and  are 
consequently  often  but  loosely  attached  to  their  new 
faith.  Sometimes  also  the  young  men  and  women, 
carefully  educated  for  careers  of  service  in  the 
Church,  drift  away  from  it  when  their  training  has 
been  finished,  into  more  attractive  or  lucrative  pur- 
suits. 

This  is  but  one  phase  of  that  gravest  of  all  mis- 


Missionaries  vs.  Natives.  193 

sionary  problems,  to  wit,  the  supply  and  equipment 
of  an  adequate  force  of  native  workers,  and  through 
them  the  establishment  of  an  independent  and  self- 
propagating  native  Church.  Missionaries  from  an- 
other country  can  serve  as  pioneers.  They  can  map 
out  the  territory,  plant  the  lines,  clear  away  the  pri- 
mary obstacles.  They  can  serve  as  managers,  teach- 
ers, and  advisers.  They  can  superintend  the  found- 
ing of  schools,  the  building  of  chapels,  the  inaugu- 
ration of  a  literature.  But  after  congregations  are 
gathered  and  converts  are  united  into  churches, 
then  only  those  to  the  manner  born  can  become  .suc- 
cessful pastors.  It  is  clear  therefore  that  the  early 
development  of  the  native  church  will  depend  upon 
the  quality  of  the  native  ministry.  The  training  of 
these  ministers  is  at  once  the  most  important  and  the 
most  difficult  of  the  missionary's  tasks. 

To  a  limited  extent  advantage  has  been  taken  in 
Mexico  of  hospitals  and  medical  work.  The  recep- 
tion by  the  Mexican  people  of  this  class  of  work  has 
been  heartier  than  one  would  have  expected,  and 
such  work  will  doubtless  be  extended  in  the  future. 
The  Methodists  have  at  present  establishments  of 
this  kind  at  Guanajuato  and  at  Monterey,  and  the 
Adventists  at  Guadalajara. 

The  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  which  sent 
an  agent  to  Mexico  in  the  .sixties,  and  the  American 
Bible  Society,  to  which  it  later  yielded  the  entire 
field,  have  been  ix>werful  agencies  in  the  promotion 
of  religious  truth  there.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
»3 


194  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

the  almost  magical  effect  wrought  by  the  reading  of 
the  Bible  upon  those  who,  though  Christians  in  be- 
lief and  intention,  are  nevertheless  very  much  in  the 
dark  as  to  the  true  nature  of  Christianity.  So  no- 
table is  this  that  all  the  evangelical  missions  openly 
and  freely  acknowledge  their  dependence  on  these 
societies  which  disseminate  the  Christian  Scriptures. 
For  many  years  the  American  Bible  Society  has  cov- 
ered Mexico  with  a  network  of  agencies.  Its  col- 
porteurs are  everywhere.  They  precede  the  mis- 
sionary and  return  again  to  reenforce  him.  Loyalty 
to  the  Bible  and  enthusiasm  for  its  propagation  and 
acceptance  form  a  common  standing-ground  for  di- 
verse societies  and  denominations,  and  enable  them 
to  present  to  this  extent,  at  least,  a  solid  front  to  the 
hostility  of  Romanism. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  work  of  the  Protestant 
missions,  up  to  the  present,  has  been  well-nigh  ex- 
clusively among  the  people  of  the  lowest  social  stra- 
tum. This  has  been  the  history  of  religious  move- 
ments in  most  nations.  The  poor,  those  who  have 
nothing  to  lose  and  all  to  gain ;  the  humble,  who  are 
thereby  also  docile ;  the  ignorant  who,  being  ignorant, 
are  willing  to  be  instructed, — among  such  our  Lord 
himself  did  his  work,  and  from  his  day  to  this  mis- 
sionaries have  followed  in  his  footsteps.  This  fact, 
however,  leads  many  observers  to  underestimate  the 
Protestant  movement  in  Mexico.  More  than  one 
prominent   Mexican,   of  the  governing  class,   have 


Significance  of  Protestantism.  195 

within  recent  years  represented  Protestantism  there 
as  insignificant. 

But  it  is  far  from  it.  In  the  first  place  its  num- 
bers make  it  already  significant,  as  will  appear  from 
the  statistics  appended  to  this  chapter.  Moreover, 
for  every  communicant  there  will  be  an  average  of 
two  or  more  friendly  "adherents,"  besides  one  or 
two  children.  The  statistics  of  communicants  may 
therefore  safely  be  multiplied  by  five  in  order  to  ex- 
hibit the  real  Protestant  population.  Nor  is  this  all. 
For  the  present  only  the  poor  are  among  the  con- 
verts. The  well-to-do  have  no  disposition  to  mix 
with  these.  They  are  also  bound  by  many  social  and 
commercial  bonds.  A  change  of  religion  would  cost 
them  too  much.  And  Protestantism  seems  to  them 
cheap  and  lacking  in  prestige.  Nevertheless,  it  will 
prove,  when  they  really  come  to  know  about  it,  far 
more  congenial  to  them  than  is  Catholicism.  Al- 
ready many  of  them  are  Catholics  only  in  name. 
And  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  the  evangelical 
faith  will  begin  to  make  inroads  especially  among 
the  liberal-minded  who  openly  declare  their  dislike 
of  the  clergy  and  their  ways,  and  who  are  therefore 
trying,  as  best  they  may,  to  get  on  without  religion. 

Besides,  those  who  are  accepting  the  gosj^el  in 
poverty  and  in  humility,  who  have  occupied  hither- 
to an  insignificant  place  in  national  affairs,  are  now 
being  elevated  by  forces  which  will  soon  make  them 
an  important  element  in  their  country's  welfare. 
The  lower  classes  will  not  remain  down  when  they 


196  A  New  Era  in  Old  Mexico. 

acquire  the  virtues  and  the  intelhgence  which  shall 
fit  them  to  compete  with  those  who  have  heretofore 
always  been  their  unchallenged  superiors.  Thus 
pressure  both  from  above  and  from  below  is  coming 
to  bear  on  the  indurated  social  stratification  of  Mex- 
ico. It  will  not  be  many  decades  till  these  ancient 
barriers  to  a  true  democracy  are  shattered. 

The  territory  of  Mexico  is  pretty  well  covered  by 
the  several  societies  engaged  in  missionary  opera- 
tions. There  is  no  great  deal  of  friction  among 
them,  but  rather  a  decided  spirit  of  good  will  and  co- 
oi^eration.  Nearly  all  the  centers  of  population  have 
one  or  more  stations,  and  the  work  in  isolated  towns 
and  villages  is  not  infrequently  more  genuine  and 
progressive  than  in  the  cities.  There  is  not  a  great 
deal  of  strictly  rural  life  among  the  Mexicans,  who 
are  social  in  their  nature  and  .spontaneously  gather 
into  villages. 

The  large  and  homogeneous  groups  of  Indians  in 
various  mountainous  sections  of  the  country  have 
not  yet  received  the  attention  from  the  several  boards 
and  their  missionaries  which  their  numbers  warrant. 
It  will  be  well  if  in  the  early  future  this  ground  be 
carefully  canvassed  to  see  if  it  will  not  be  worth 
while  to  furnish  these  peoples  with  missionaries  and 
a  literature  in  their  own  dialects.  They  have  but 
a  slight  knowledge  of  Spanish,  and  are  by  every  to- 
ken legitimate  objects  of  missionary  endeavor. 

Ever  since  President  Diaz  got  his  administration 
in  hand  he  has  earnestly  striven  to  uphold  the  con- 


Diaz  and  Protestantism.  197 

stitutional  provisions  on  the  subject  of  religious  lib- 
erty. The  laws  of  Mexico  afford  ample  protection 
for  the  celebration  of  worship  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  every  man's  conscience.  Of  course  it  hap- 
pened often  in  the  early  years  of  Protestantism  that 
ignorant  and  prejudiced  priests  incited  the  people  to 
acts  of  persecution,  and  the  local  representatives  of 
the  civil  government  refused  to  punish  or  repress 
these  breaches  of  the  peace.  But  the  attitude  of  the 
president  has  gradually  become  well  known,  and  no 
petty  official  can  now  afford  to  neglect  his  duty  at 
this  point  under  penalty  of  losing  his  office.  The 
president  is  not  openly  friendly  to  Protestantism,  but 
is  annoyed  and  humiliated  by  any  sort  of  a  religious 
riot,  since  he  considers  it  a  reflection  upon  the  civili- 
zation of  his  country. 
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(198) 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

The  scarcity  of  historical  books  concerning  Mexico  has 
been  noted.  Several  volumes  of  H.  H.  Bancroft's  compre- 
hensive "History  of  the  Pacific  Coast"  are  devoted  to  Mexico, 
and  the  same  writer  prepared,  or  had  prepared,  a  "Popular 
History  of  the  Mexican  People."  The  latter  is  colorless  and 
unsatisfactory;  the  former  voluminous  and  inaccessible.  The 
histories  of  Noll,  Ober,  and  Mrs.  Hale  are  mere  brief  compila- 
tions. Noll's  "From  Empire  to  Republic"  is  a  fairly  instruct- 
ive outline  of  the  political  history  of  the  country  from  1810 
to  1870.  It  is  deficient  in  perspective  and  in  grasp  upon  the 
real  meaning  of  events.  The  author  has  inserted  in  it  an 
admirable  bibliography,  to  which  the  reader  is  referred.  Of 
serious  books  not  specifically  historical  the  best  are  Thomp- 
son's "Recollections  of  Mexico,"  Abbott's  "Mexico  and  the 
United  States,"  Butler's  "Mexico  in  Transition,"  and  Brown's 
"Latin  America."  Of  a  more  popular  type  are  Madame  de  la 
Barca's  "Life  in  Mexico,"  Bishop's  "Old  Mexico  and  Her 
Lost  Provinces,"  Ober's  "Travels  in  Mexico,"  Gooch's  "Face 
to  Face  with  the  Mexicans,"  etc.  Lummis's  "Awakening  of 
a  Nation"  is  sensational  and  unreliable.  Romero's  "Mexico 
and  the  United  States"  contains  much  valuable  matter. 

(199) 


INDEX. 


ACAPULCO,  76. 

AUende,  68,  72,  T^,- 
Altamirano,    61. 
Alvarez,  104. 
Alvarado,  Pedro,  47. 
Apodaca,  82. 
Azcapotzalco,  29. 
Aztecs,  20,  28,  29. 

Beans,  10. 

Benito  Juarez  :  see  Juarez. 
Bible,    180,    181,    190. 
Bravo,  Nicolas,  78,  90. 

Calderon  de  la  Barca,  183. 

Calleja,  n,  76,  ^^,  80,  81. 

Carlota,   123,    127. 

Casas   (Padre  de  las),  56. 

Cemeteries,   177,   178. 

Chichimecs,  21,  29. 

Chihuahua,  74. 

Church  party,  97,  174. 

Cinco  de  Mayo,   120. 

Citizenship,  135. 

Civil  marriage,   r77- 

Clergy,  151,  182. 

Coffee,  12. 

Colegio   de    San   Nicolas,  66, 

1(^,  143- 
Comonfort,  108,  109,  T15. 
Congress  of  Chilpancingo,  79. 
Consejo    de    las   Indias:     seo 

Royal  Council. 


Constitution,  92,  103,  108. 
Cortes  (Spanish),  83,  86. 
Cortez,  38.  40,  .12,  46. 
Cotton,  10. 
Creoles,  66. 
Cuba.  148. 

Diaz,  Porfirio,  135,  153,  155, 

158,  160,  161,  163. 
Diego  Velasquez,  38. 
Dominguez,  67. 
Domenech,  Abbe,  182. 

Faria.s  :  see  Gomez  Farias. 

53- 
Egypt,  27. 
Encomiendas,  57. 
Eugenie,  113. 

Farias  :  see  Gomez  Farias. 
Ferdinand  VII.,  61,  82,  86,  96. 
Foreign  investments,  167. 
Franciscans,  in. 
French  Intervention,  124,  151. 
Fueros,  89,  92,  103,  105. 

Gomez   Farias,  92,   105,   108, 

109,  133- 
Gonzales,  Gen.  Manuel,  165. 
Government,  65. 
Grito,  69. 
Guanajuato,  70. 
Guerrero,  83. 

(301) 


202 


Index. 


Henequen,  II. 

Hidalgo,  Padre,  66,  67,  70,  ^2, 

Human  sacrifices,  31. 

Iglesias,  Jose  Maria,  160. 

Indians,  23,  24,  138,  146,  180. 

Indian  corn,  9. 

Indian  dialects,  26. 

Inquisition :  see  Spanish  In- 
quisition. 

Intervention :  see  French  In- 
tervention. 

Iturbide,  83,  87,  97. 

Ixtle,  II. 

Japanese,  17. 
Jecker,  118,  121. 
Jesuits,  III,  112. 
Juarez,  Benito,   104.  106,  107, 
109,  III,  115.  130,  152,  155. 

157- 

Lerdo  de  Tejada,  Miguel,  92. 

Leredo  de  Tejada,  Sebastian, 
153,  157,  159,  160. 

Lcyes  de  Re  forma:  see  Re- 
form Laws. 

Maguey,  ii. 

Marina,  40. 

Marquez,    Lorenzo,    117,    128, 

130. 
Masonrjf,  90. 
Mayas,  18,  28. 
Maximilian,     114,     122,     124, 

129,  130,  151- 
Mejia,  Gen.,  130. 
Mestizos,  16,  66. 


Mezcal,  11. 

Mexican  coat  of  arms,  21. 

Michoacan,  34. 

Mina,  Javier,  82. 

Mines,  14. 

Miramon,  117,  128,  130. 

Missionaries,  193. 

Mixtecs,  19. 

IMoctezuma,  30,  46,  48. 

Monopolies,  65. 

Monroe  doctrine,  88,  125. 

Moorish  influence,  2y. 

Morelia,  66,  71. 

Morelos,  76,  81. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  61. 
Napoleon  III.,   113,   115,   119, 

121,  123,  126,  127. 
National  Museum,  31. 
National  credit,  172. 
New  Spain,  51,  54. 
Noche  Triste,  49. 

OcAMPO,    Melchor,   92,    106, 

133- 
O'Donoju,  84. 

"Plan  de  la  Noria,"  155. 
Plateau  of  Mexico,  5. 
"Porfiristas,"  156,  161. 
Prescott,  50,  183. 
Prieto,  Guillermo,  92,  156. 
Protestantism.  189,  195. 
Public  schools,   loi,   174,   175, 

191. 
Puebla,  120. 

Queretaro,  65,  67,  128. 


Index. 


203 


Railroads,  166. 

Rainfall,  6. 

Reform  Laws,   103,   104,   159, 

177- 
Religious  orders,  55,  no. 
Religious  situation,  185. 
Revolution,  59,  94. 
Royal  Council,  51,  148. 
Rubber  plant,  13. 
Rurales,  169. 

Santa  Anna,  90,  106,  163. 

Schools,  145. 

Seward,  W.  H.,  126. 

Silver,   13,  172. 

Spanish    Inquisition,    52,    141, 

149. 
Spanish  juntas,  62,  63. 
Spanish  language,  26. 
Sugar  cane,  10. 

Tarascan  Indians,  35. 
Tariffs,   171- 


Tenochtitlan   (Mexico  City), 

29,  45- 
Texas,  91. 

"The  Fair  God,"  43. 
Tlaxcala,  33,  44. 
Toltecs,  18,  20. 
Tierra  caliente,  2. 
Tierra  fria,  4. 
Tierra  templada,  3,  4. 
Tzintzuntzan,  35. 

Venegas,  63. 
Vera  Cruz,  41,  117. 
Virgin  of  Guadalupe,  69. 
Volcanoes,  7. 

War  with  the  United  States, 
91. 

Yellow  fever,  3. 

Zacatecas,  75. 
Zapotecs,   19. 
Zaragoza,  120. 


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